00:00 Chris Grainger
Welcome to the lion within us, a podcast, serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders. They’re pre-destined to be I’m your host, Chris Grainger. Let’s jump in. All right guys. I’m so excited for, for this episode. This is gonna be crazy. Cool. And you’ll know what I’m talking about here in a few minutes guys, once we get in with Don, but first thing we wanna start off with every episode of the line within us is scripture Matthew 2236 to 39.

That go back to the spiritual kickoff that we released. If you didn’t listen to it, go back, shame on you. That’s okay. Because I really unpack that scripture, what it means to me, what I learned from it. And it may help you in your walk. But the scripture says teacher, which is Jesus, which is the greatest commandment in the law.

And Jesus replied, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is this. Love your neighbor as yourself. Wonderful scripture there guys. And I tell you what if we just get that right? The rest falls into place. So this week, who would I, who would I have?

I have Mr. Don Manning. I’m gonna tell you what, he’s got 30 years of parenting experience. He’s got seven kids. You heard me, right? Seven kids of all ages. He’s a business owner, a CFO of a real estate company and serves on the elder board of the valley Creek church. A church that he and his wife, Suzanne actually helped start.

30 years ago. He loves being a husband and a father, and he loves exercising, outdoors, anything get outside. They got four girls. They have Molly, Madeline, Macy McKenzie, and three boys, Michael Maddox and MCCA. Okay. They stop having kids that are home, but now they have four daughters that are married and they get to have grandchildren.

So they’re so excited. So guys together, they that he and his wife, they started this crazy cool family over 10 years ago to really equip parents, to raise world changing kids. And life giving family. So guys, I am so excited that for, for Don to join us, we’re gonna learn a lot. So just buckle up. Let’s get ready to unleash the line within where Mr.

Don Manning.

So Don, welcome to the line within us. How you doing today? My

02:07 Don Manning
friend, I’m doing well. Thanks for having me. I, I just, I want just roar. lying with there, right?

02:15 Chris Grainger
Well, you gonna have plenty of chance to roar today. I promise you that. I promise you that. And I’ve been, I’ve been building you up just so you know, so no pressure, but you know, I had the, the spiritual kickoff where I walked through Matthew 22, cuz that’s just the scripture you gave me.

Yeah. And I really, I, I leaned into that and was, was talking to the guys about, you know, what that scripture means and. You know, uh, what I learned from it. And then also, um, you know, just building, I, I kept dropping this crazy cool stuff in every time, every time I turn around, I was, I was dropping crazy.

Cool. This is gonna be a crazy cool guest. And so they’re probably wondering, what is this guy? Who is this crazy cool guy, right. So man, just, if you don’t mind break it down for em, what is the crazy cool that, that, that you guys, you and your wife that you’ve built and how you’re trying to serve others?

03:01 Don Manning
Well, first of all, let’s just talk about crazy cool family. Why that name is there. Cause sometimes people go, you know, I don’t want my family to be crazy, you know, and cool in terms of like hip or whatever, but I just something I called our family for a long time. I have seven kids and um, as the family matured, I just said, you know what?

We are crazy cool because crazy means that we don’t do things the world’s way. We do things God’s way God’s ways are crazy. They really are, you know, God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. And, and as we talk about how we, uh, believe God wants us to do family, it really is a crazy solution.

We, we focus on different things in the world. And, and so, and then cool, just because, uh, if, if family is done well and you have great relationships in your home and great connections and your kids love Jesus, other than salvation, it’s the, it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I mean, yeah. You know, when I was, um, I was, I was telling you pre podcast here, when we’re talking, I kind of, I’ve been parenting for 30 years now, my wife and I just celebrated 30 years of marriage.

And so I kinda look at my parenting in decades, you know, decade one, two, and. And I remember being at the end of the first decade, you know, I’ve got, I’ve got four girls and then three boys. And so my kids go from 32 to 16 and, uh, so four girls and then three boys, the four girls are now married. Uh, three boys are, uh, 22 and 18 and 16, but I remember being at that first, um, end of that first decade and going, um, Hey dude, I’ve gotta figure out how to win this game, you know?

And, and, and winning, um, does not mean that we are, um, three for seven, you know, I mean, I didn’t have seven kids time. Maybe I had four or something like that, but, you know, I said, I gotta go seven for. And, and, and because if I have two kids that, that don’t love, I saw in, in, in front of me, what was happening with families where, you know, they were really trying hard at Christian things, but half their kids loved Jesus and half of ’em didn’t and they didn’t like, you know, they, everybody thought and they had all these conflicts and things.

And I was like, I don’t know how to get there necessarily, but I don’t want that to be me. And, and, and I, I, here’s what I want. And I, and I really didn’t know was I, I had to ask the Lord. I said, Lord, what should I want in family? And he said, you know, okay, let’s, let’s have a family where, uh, your kids love Jesus and where, um, you know, we’re, we’re all connected together.

And so I said, How do I figure that out? And that’s what led to, um, crazy cool family, because, you know, at that time I was like, at that time show you how old I am. We didn’t have the internet, you know, we didn’t have, um, things we really had, no, the way we learned about family was through books and through mentors people, you know, we would invite families over that.

We like their families or whatever, and we didn’t invite people that we didn’t like their families. And so, um, but we saw families that were successful and we went to seminars and things, and I kept thinking, man, I wish somebody would write me a playbook. I wish somebody would really, I mean, take all this information, you know, and, and put it in a package where it could, where I could build a framework, like, like build a road to drive my family down and, and really to, to where I knew what to focus on and, and what not to focus on.

Because you see, and I’ve been doing this a long time. Now my wife, and I’ve been doing this a long time. And so what we find is is that, and mostly the people that listen to us, the people who really wanna do family well, are people like you, Chris they’re believers. And they’ve got, you know, younger kids and they’re like, Hey, I wanna learn, you know, I wanna, I wanna figure this out.

And, uh, what we find, you know, Chris is that a lot of Christian parents are working hard at some of the wrong things that doesn’t, we rarely come across deadbeat parents in our ministry. You know, we’re not talking about people that they’re going to, the ball games, they’re working hard, they’re working their jobs.

They’re providing for their families. They’re, you know, they’re doing the things now. They may have issues. Like we all do, uh, where the devil gets in and we have substance issues or we have anger issues, or we have, you know, uh, sexual issues or whatever it is. I mean, but I’m not, but, but they’re, but they’re people who are, who are trying in family.

And, and Christian people that are trying in family. And, and what we found is is that if we can shift their thinking a little bit, not make ’em work harder, you know, in fact, sometimes it’ll be less effort for better results, but, you know, it’s, it’s really not about working harder. It’s about changing the way you think in, or, and changing the way you believe and what you’re valuing in order to, to line up more with where God wants your family to

08:12 Chris Grainger
go.

Mm-hmm . So, I mean, that focus on the value then. I mean that, when you say that, sometimes I know in God’s particular, okay. To say I value something. Are you taken to the point where you’re actually writing these things

08:26 Don Manning
down and framing it up over time? Yes. I mean, so like, I, we were just talking about this pre podcast too, is that, uh, you know, what’s a value, a value is something that’s important to you.

And so, you know, like for example, uh, in your life, in your website, you talk about health, wealth, and self. Okay. So at some point, you know, you were three 30 pounds and you decided to value health. And so that led to some things that became important to you. I dunno what all those are, chances are you ate differently.

Chances are you decided to an exercise regime or whatever, you know? Yeah. Uh, and we think, and, and so, and a lot of guys think, okay, career, here’s my career values. You know, here’s what I, here’s where I want to go. You know, when I was starting my career, first thing I wanted do, I wanted to be a chief financial officer in a company.

So I’m like, okay, that’s my value. That’s my direction. That’s where I’m going. How am I gonna get there? Um, we do the same thing in our family, you know, mm-hmm . And so like, for example, one of the things that my wife and I decided, uh, years ago was. And we heard it from someone and we said, our kids are gonna be best friends.

And, and, and I don’t mean just, they’re not gonna fight. I mean, they’re going and what we’ve learned over time, the value kind of evolved over time. We didn’t have these words 20 years ago, but what’s evolved is, is that they’re not just not gonna fight. They’re going to invest in one another. Yeah. They’re gonna be such good friends and they’re gonna care about each other so much that they’re gonna be wanting to invest in each other and develop the relationships at a deep level.

Well, so that became years ago. We didn’t articulate it like that, but, and, and I don’t know if we wrote it down or not, but we definitely talked about it. You know, my wife and I definitely talked about it and we decided that was gonna be a value in our home. And so for the last 20 years, we fought for. And, and had a and thought is a great word.

I mean, thought in every way you can imagine and, and helped our kids learn how not to fight with each other. And, you know, today, I, I literally have seven kids that are best friends that, you know, my 18 year old is leaving for college. And, uh, you know, he was given his speech to some people about, and, and he did shout outs to his family and he said, and I’m sad to leave MCCA his younger brother, who’s my best friend.

And, um, and you know, it and moms and dads, I mean, I know we’re talking to dads a lot, but it’s, it’s dads and moms too, that that’s something we pursue. We decide to pursue the values that God puts on our heart. Yes.

11:15 Chris Grainger
Now, when I, when I went through the crazy cool family, the book, and then the, your, your course and all that stuff, and guys go through the show notes will have all that stuff synced up for you.

This is the one that I struggle with. And may, maybe since you started here, we can camp out here a little bit because yeah, there you go. That that’s an important one. So my older daughters, they’re 11 and 12 they’re Chloe and Ava, and sometimes they get along. They’re they’re awesome. Here. They, they went through a lot of, of, of, of things in life that, that kids shouldn’t have to go through.

They went through a divorce and, and, you know, they they’ve, they they’ve experienced loss. So they’ve been able to actually grow together in a pretty cool way. But at the same time, like Chloe is the peacemaker. Ava is the go getter. You know, she’s the, she likes to be out front and, and being in charge.

When you say that, you know, we’re gonna value kids, our kids are gonna be best friends in, in my mind. I love the idea. I just have no clue. Okay, how do we make that a reality? And I can’t help, but think there’s probably some guys listening out there right now thinking yeah. Yes, yes. How do I actually do this?

So, I mean, can you unpack that anymore? Give us us some Ely

12:23 Don Manning
ideas, you know, and really when you have seven kids, there’s a lot of relationships in our home. You know, our book, we have our, in our website, our membership site, we have what’s called the family dashboard and we draw the different relationships, all those lines.

Yeah. Right. Exactly. And in, in a, in a family that has, and we talk about there’s, there’s five types of relationships in the home. There’s parent to God, there’s marriage, parent to kid, and everybody knows those ones. But what they don’t realize is the kid to. That’s the one that, yeah, that’s got me beyond.

So, but in those lines, so in, in our family, uh, if there’s 10, if there’s two kids in family, there’s 10 relationships, 10 total relationships in seven, in a nine member family, like we have there’s 45 relationships. And so literally, I mean, you think about, and so, and literally what we found was, and I’m getting to the answer to your question is what we found in that second decade of parenting is that as we parented to those lines, instead of worrying about their behavior, their performance, as we started to see how our kids were connected with each other, how we were connected with them, how they were connected with God, it transformed the way we parented.

And so we focused on those relationships. Now, practically, let’s talk about siblings as best friends. Now, first daughter, Molly, second daughter, Madeline, four years apart. Uh, Oil and water. I mean, you could not have two different kids. Molly’s a emotional perfectionist. Very great. Um, achiever always got everything.

I mean, when she was two years old, her little blanket had to be perfect, you know, and Madeline fun, loving, uh, obnoxious, just, you know, all over the place. And so, and an, an obnoxious, annoying little sister. So we, but yet, you know, so when they, uh, it took literally until, um, you know, Molly tells the story, I think in the book, actually that it was when she started taking Madeline to school, when mm-hmm was, uh, 16 and Madeline was 12 before that they got along and we still put ’em together.

But that relationship with they struggled in that relationship a lot. They started to connect. Uh, my oldest boy, uh, Michael, uh, who’s uh, about three years older than, uh, his next brother, Maddox again, oil and water. Michael’s a, uh, he is an introvert. He is a, um, uh, a leader, uh, Maddox, much more people person.

Uh, and Michael is, is one of those guys. He either likes it or he doesn’t. And he didn’t like his little brother. And so he was really mean to it actually. I mean, he, I mean, literally like, you know, just mean and rude and, and, but that was the one thing that I, you know, we were talking about, like kids knew they didn’t lie and the kids knew they never spoke ill of their, of their siblings.

And so if that ever happened, and literally we would do things like if you were arguing with your sibling, you spent more time with them. And we would put ’em in together and we would just say, Hey, obviously the Lord, the Lord wants you to be best friends. And obviously that’s not happening right now. So you need more practice.

And so we’re gonna, we’re gonna go in together and we’re gonna go play together. And, and literally in our, in what, again, some of this evolved over time, but like in our, uh, in our base camp membership side, there’s a whole course on siblings as best friends. And one of the things we do in there is we teach the, we have videos on how to teach your older sibling to what their role is and how to teach the younger sibling, what their role is.

Okay. One of the things we teach the older sibling is this. We go to our older siblings a lot and still do to this day and say, Hey, we need your help. And they say, what do you mean? Of course, you know, oh, help. What, what do you want me to do? Well, you know what, um, other than mom and dad, you’re gonna have more influence in your younger siblings life than anybody else.

So we need your help in parenting them. Would you like them to turn out well, and, and really, even though siblings get mad at each other and they’re jealous of you, they really do want the be deep down. They want the best God’s hardwired relationship into our hearts. And so we say, Hey, um, we need your help.

And so, uh, and realize when you talk mean to your younger sibling, uh, man, it really hurts them. Do you wanna hurt them? No, I don’t, but they’re so annoying, you know, I get it. I totally get they’re annoying to us too. So, um, how can we help you? You know, let’s, let’s work with the holy spirit to help you, um, to help you invest in your, uh, younger sibling.

And, and then we go the younger sibling and we say, Hey, you don’t get to be a brat. If you want your older sibling to play with you and to do things with you and to enjoy you, we gotta teach you how not to be a brat. So you can’t go in there and you can’t tell on and you can’t, you know? And so we start coaching them on how to be a younger, how to be liked by their older sibling.

It’s a conscious effort to use that. And, you know, and, and also just, you know, in our, in, in our other, uh, video series, unity, celebrating differences. Wow. Different than you for a reason’s he’s training you to relationships in the outside world. Well, and if you don’t learn it here with this annoying little sibling, then you’re gonna get a boss just like that.

You’re gonna get a kid just like that eventually, cuz God wants you. There’s some things, God, didn’t God, didn’t just wake up one morning and go, oh wow. I gave you that sibling. I, I I’m sorry. I made a mistake. You know, I didn’t mean to do that. Of course he did. He gave you that sibling for a reason. And so when you start training your kids like that, is, is this making sense at all?

I’m just rambling here. Absolutely. But when you start to, when you start to build, and that’s what we do in our base camp, um, membership side is we, we give these videos to you that that instill these principles, any of these practical ways for you to be able to instill that those types of values in your home that are important.

Mm-hmm I love it do. And I’ll say about five of them, but I mean, but you use those and you start going, okay. And, and as you see these circumstances, you start saying, Hey, here’s a, and, and so often we get so mad when our siblings, when our kids fight, because it brings out Suzanne talks about a lot, especially with moms, it brings out the mama bear in, in a mom, a cause you just, you got this, you got one child that you love hurting.

Another child that you love. And so all we wanna do is go shut up. You know, don’t do that, you know, but instead it’s like, Hey, when that happens, you’ve got a teaching opportunity. You got an opportunity for influence. And if you can go overcome your, have your own self control and say, Hey, let’s just, let’s talk about what’s happening here then over time.

And it’s hard fight, but you guide, I love it. I love it.

19:55 Chris Grainger
Hey, let’s take a quick break. We’ll be right back.

You wouldn’t jump in a boxing ring and expect to win without training, right? So why do you think you can win the battle? Get Satan without putting in the work for the Christian man, it starts with knowing scripture and your heart to help you out and get started with your training. We created a free guide of 10 scriptures.

You need to fight like a lion, go grab this free resource, and I’m gonna come alongside of you in a series of personal and engaging messages. Designed to challenge and help you grow. So get equipped today with scripture, that will help you fight the battle you are in visit the lion within.us to get started today.

That’s the line within.us to unlock this free guide. You need to fight like a lion.

So the teaching opportunity, Dawn, I mean, we I’m all over. And I love how you basically, you go to your, to the oldest sibling in that, in that first scenario you talk about and you embrace them. And, and you’re asking them as a parent for their help. And I think for some guys, listen, that’s probably the most far off thinking thing.

They never would’ve considered that. Right? Yeah. I. Like I’m the dad, but yeah, but you know, there’s, you, you, you are just a part of that equation, cuz I, I think drawing that out, what’d you call it the family diagram.

21:15 Don Manning
Yeah. The family dashboard. Family dashboard. Yeah, the

21:17 Chris Grainger
dashboard my, well, me and Becca when we did that together and we filled it out and it, it showed up on our screen cuz we have three and then we’ll have four in November prayerfully and we looked at all those lines, it was kind of intimidating.

It was like, oh wow. Like that’s a, that’s a lot to think about for all these relationships. And we naturally, as you, as you pointed out the husband to wife, the individual husband to, to, to God or the wife to God, those ones, I think we lean into more and, or either parent to kid, but that one for, for kid to kid, I think I I’m, I’m definitely gonna be taking that course.

I haven’t got to that part of your course yet on, on sibling because I think do, do you recommend. The kids to do the course with the families too, or is this a parenting only type stuff?

22:02 Don Manning
I mean, well, I think first of all, it’s gonna be, the parents are gonna, it’s definitely geared to the parents, but we have kids.

I mean, I think it depends on your kid. OK. And like, we definitely have parents that tell us, Hey, I listen to the podcast with my eight year old daughter or that’s cool. Or my wife, or we watch this video with our kids and things like that. I, I think it depends on the kid, depends on the family, obviously start with the parents.

Um, and, and then, um, uh, see what happens, you know, because it’s definitely year, there’s nothing there that’s gonna be unsafe. It’s, uh, it’s very teaching. All the videos are very teaching oriented where, you know, the examples are, but I, I wanna tell you something, you know, you were asking about how this works.

So, um, you know, uh, over time, my D my oldest daughter, Molly, who was the. As we had more kids. Yeah. She was the one who got a lot of the responsibility of it. And, and literally was annoyed every time we would say we were having another baby. Now my second daughter, Madeline, again, just differences. And, and, and Madeline was the child who, when she was, uh, nine years old, uh, decided that we needed to have another baby in our house.

Okay. And so came to us, as parents said, mom, dad, we need to have another baby. And we were like, we had five kids at the time. We said, Madeline, that is of the devil. And so we don’t need to have another child. And so Madeline then prayed every day for a year, every day, every meal, every, every bed. Matt. Okay.

We’re gonna pray. Okay. I’ll pray. Lord, help us to have a baby. Amen. That was her prayer, her little nine year old prayer and wanted a little girl, so she could have a doll to play with. And, uh, and then you know about it, but we were done. I mean, we had five kids we were done. Yeah. And, and, uh, one time we gave God the smallest of opportunities and, uh, and bam here comes here and then, uh, then we had to tell her that it was a boy and she balled.

Yeah. But so, so we got Matt, we got Molly over here, the oldest who’s, um, who’s just ready to be done. Ready. I mean, like when we told her we were having our seventh child, she wanted to pack her bags and leave. And, uh, and so, uh, but Madeline’s all about the kids or whatever. But today, you know, there was something that, and is actually when we had our seventh child MC MCCA, and this is just the longevity of pursuing values is one of the things I wanna, you know, man, we’re in this for the long haul, parenting’s a long term game.

It’s long term game to do well. And just like, you know, you don’t get in shape in a week. You know, you develop eating habits, you develop exercise habits, you know, things like that. That’s what we’re doing today. Molly is our biggest family fan. And I mean, she is the, she is the matriarch, the kids, and she, it loves family and it, and it, and it flows down to where I’ll finish that whole subject with this story.

So my youngest daughter, Mackenzie who’s, uh, you know, um, Michael, my oldest boy who’s right below her is ans just a puck at that point. I mean, just a punk. He has, he’s a very strong willed kid, uh, tremendous leader. Now he’s 22. He’s uh, at the university of Arkansas, just killing it. But at that time he’s got a girlfriend he’s wondering what he is gonna do with in life.

And so, uh, he and I got crossways with this girl and influence in life and all that. So the fall of, um, eighth grade year, he is just mad as can be at me. Won’t talk to us as very bitter, um, sits in his room, plays video games all day, just, um, and, uh, Mackenzie, my youngest daughter, who’s been instill, you know, this has been working the whole time and this is how it benefits those guys who think I’ve gotta do everything.

So McKenzie’s a, a junior in high school. All right. Right. And so, and every day when she gets home and, um, and they go to the same school together, same church, And the way our house is built here, she’s gotta go upstairs. It’s kind of been added on, so she’s gotta go through his room to get to her bedroom.

Okay. Cause they kinda just added on. Right. And so we’ve been, we’ve told her what’s going on, Mackenzie, you know, Michael’s struggling with this and you know, let’s pray for him, you know, let’s um, let’s help us or whatever. So we don’t tell her anything really to do, but every day she walks up there and so she starts coming by his room.

Hey Michael, how you doing? Hey, uh, would you, you know, how are you doing? Would you like to, you know, would you like to, um, go out with some of my friends and me, we’re going to get some coffee and you know, I’d love to take you. He’s playing video games, Nell McKenzie. I don’t want go anywhere. I’m done, you know, whatever next day.

Hey Michael, how you doing? Can I sit and watch with you for a minute? You know, just hang out you for a minute. Sure. Whatever. Just his video games. Six every day, every day she goes by his room. And I tell Mackenzie, now you get in the sibling hall of fame for this, but, uh, but I said, uh, you know, every day, she, by there and, and invites this, this junior high school invites this into her world every day.

Finally, after six months, one day he goes, okay, I’ll do it. And then for the next year and a half, they become best friend. They, he hangs, he’s got his own friends. He’s at, he’s at his own we’re, they’re at a Christian school there. So he’s got his own friends as well, but they hang out together a lot. They go do stuff together there, they have a kind of a friend group through church that are, uh, multi-level, you know, multi grade type friendships.

And, um, but she turned his life for. We didn’t. I mean, you know, we helped and it, it was, it was actually a couple of more years. Michael was a sophomore when we started to reconcile our relationship. I mean, fully where it was, you know, we, we were better after, you know, he turned his life around to God. It was better.

But I mean, I can remember having a conversation with him like ninth or 10th grade going, dad, I need to ask your forgiveness because I have, because I have been bitter towards you, but that came from first, the McKenzie relationship. I mean, and, and, you know, there’s just story, it it’s worth it to pursue that value in your family.

Well, I mean,

28:59 Chris Grainger
for me, I think through the guys that are listening, we want, we want things now we want things quick. We want things fast, but nothing you just went through was quick, fast, and, and, and now it’s, it’s, it is a grind. And, you know, and you also, I’m just curious for you with your relationship with your son, You know, it sounds like it was, it was a struggle right there.

How hard was it for you to, to, to back off and to just trust, you know? And, and, and, and, and McKenzie, it seemed like she was really leaning in trying to, to build that for you from a dad standpoint, what were you dealing with at that

29:33 Don Manning
time? Well, I mean, it’s just brutal when you don’t have, and, and, you know, so often we, um, you know, I think almost every parent, I talked to deals with disconnects, with their kids.

Right. You know, and, and it’s one of the reasons why, when, um, you know, my first decade of parenting, I was what I call a typical overachieving Christian dad, you know, we were gonna obey. We wanted to be, you know, I wanted to make sure they, they did things right. And they excelled in their sports and all the things, and they made their grades and all those things.

And, and we started to, you know, move in the second decade to see that, yeah, those are good things to do. It’s what I talk about is. We’re pursuing some of the wrong things, you know, we need to, those things are good, but when we focus on the outside behavior and obedience, not embarrassing, those that becomes our focus.

But when we focus on the relationship, get the connection, plus we get all those things too. Yeah. You know, I mean, and it’s, it’s just a, it’s, it’s a shift of the focus. So yeah, when the relationship, you know, I remember telling Michael because, you know, one of the things that was about a girl, you know, and, and I felt like he didn’t need to be with her and this particular girl.

And, and I said, Michael, you know, I remember telling him, I said, I’ve coached every ball team you’ve been on. I’ve invested in your life. I’ve been everywhere with you. I said, if I’m willing to risk our relationship for this girl and, and the, the negative effect it’s gonna have on your life, then. What do you think that means to me?

Why do you think I’m doing that? Do you think I’m not for you? And so, but it, so that’s what, you know, it really did hurt, you know, being disconnected, but, but also just, you know, one of the things my wife showed me, and I think this is a belief that I have that, that shifted in that first decade to second decade, I used to be really scared about how my kids were gonna turn out mm-hmm and whether I was gonna be connected to them.

Right. And one of the things my wife told me in, you know, the end in that first decade, I would say, you know, she didn’t, she didn’t have that bully. She had faith. And I would say, you know, why don’t you, why don’t you worry about this more? She’s like, I just believe God’s got him. And I, and I said, okay. And I’m like, it, it challenged me to say, I need to believe that way too.

So one of the things that got me through this back to the relationship with Michael is just the belief. That one, my children are going to love Jesus and I’m going to be connected with them, even though there may be Rocky roads in the relationship. I just had a belief that sometime it’s gonna have the breakthrough.

And, and, and so that helps sustain me through that, you know, through that rough patch.

32:26 Chris Grainger
Well, I mean, that’s, that’s phenomenal story and, and it sounds like now you and Michael, well, all your kids, but that relationship is, is strong than ever.

32:35 Don Manning
Well, what happened was, is, uh, so Michael and, uh, and again, uh, man, I, I feel like I’m telling a lot of crazy stories, but he comes to us.

So he’s a sophomore at his Christian school. And, uh, at the end of his sophomore year comes to us and says, uh, he’s a, now I realize Michael’s, uh, he’s six, two, he’s about hundred 90 pounds at this time. Uh, and. He’s an outside linebacker made a hundred tackles his sophomore year, uh, just, you know, leader in his school.

He’s got everything you could ask for. And he says, I I’m. He said, dad, I’m done with high school. Uh, I wanna go to the community college and do dual credit and, uh, explore more life with my church. And just more. I, I, I want more freedom in life during my high school years. And you know, our community college has a program where they can kind of homeschool, but do college and get college credit for it.

Well cool. But it is like, yeah, but Michael, I said, dude, you’ve got this million dollar opportunity. Oh yeah. Play for two years. You’re a leader in your school. I mean, you’ve got a great Christian school. Your mom works there, everything’s there. And, um, but um, he said, man, I, I just I’m way too busy with life.

Um, he’s he had some school issues, you know, and, and, you know, learning issues and things. And he said, um, I just felt like the Lord leave me this way. And I was like, wow. Okay. And at first I was like, no, but then I was like, okay, let’s let him walk. And the Lord. And um, I said, I, here’s what I told him. I said, you got a million dollar opportunity at your school there.

I said, if you’re gonna leave this and go two years of freedom, I said, you better go create a $2 million opportunity. Right. And, and he did, you know, and that’s one of the things we talk about a lot of crazy cool family is just inspiring your kids. Helping them hear from the Lord, letting them make mistakes, you know, not pushing them down a certain path.

And, um, and my point is, is that during those two years, he did, he pursued a lot of things that he pursued mentors. He, he had a great experience, but also during that time, you know, one of the things he he did is we started going lunch together and we, would’ve never done that. Um, if he’d have been at school.

Yeah. You know, and, and to this day, you know, he, he comes back in college and we still have these conversations and he is like, you know, dad, I remember those lunches. And I remember just sitting down with you. And for the first time I saw who you really were, the businessman you were and the person you are more than just the guy you are at home.

Right. And so it really helped us to reconnect, man, what a

35:23 Chris Grainger
powerful story. And let’s take a quick break. We’ll be right back guys.

Outside of God’s word. What should you be reading to grow as a Christian leader? It can be daunting to see all the options available these days to help bring you some sanity to your search. We compile all of our featured books of the week, so you can make wise choices and strengthen your mind. The topics range from health, wealth, and self.

So there’s something there for all you guys, whether you’re looking for books for yourself, or maybe you’re researching ideas for other men, this is gonna be a resource that brings you value to check out the line with end dot slash book, to see what would serve you the best right now, and start sharpening your mind to be that leader.

You’re pretesting to B that’s the line with them.us/book to learn more.

So Don, I mean, that, that story was Michael UN unreal of, of first of all, that you. You guys gave him that opportunity. I mean, you definitely put a challenge in front of him, but it sounds like he made the most outta that opportunity for those two years and those lunches. I’m sure you’ll, you’ll never

36:33 Don Manning
forget him either.

Absolutely. And you know, to this day, when he comes back home, you know, we’ll go to, or we’ll sit around the fire or, you know, we’ll, we’ll do something and we have just such, uh, conversations and that’s what, you know, I, you know, here’s what happens, you know, Chris is that we, we talk about a crazy cool family.

If you’ll listen to ’em when they’re five, they’ll talk to you when they’re 15. Mm. And, and, and what that means is, is that we, we start you’re, you’re building a culture in your home. You are literally, uh, this is where it’s crazy, Chris, because it’s so different. What most men see about home and what was different being that good Christian dad.

You know, it’s not even a good Christian dad. Sometimes it’s just a performance oriented dad. It’s an obedient oriented. It’s a, it’s an outcome oriented dad. Mm-hmm to what if we really focused on the inside first? What if we stepped out in faith and believed, you know, and it came from, you know, you, you said you did your little, the study on Matthew 22.

And that was that’s where it really flipped for me. When I said, they said what’s most important to Jesus. And he said, love. He didn’t say he could have said anything. In fact, if you go back to when Jesus was, uh, was living, there were two prominent Jewish theologians at the time through two prominent rabbis.

And one of ’em, I can’t remember the guy’s names right now, but one of ’em was Gama Lale I think, but one of them said, it’s all about relationship mm-hmm and the other one said, it’s all about obedience mm-hmm and those were two. Philosophies that Jesus was under within the big, you know, Jewish culture at time.

Jesus chose relationship instead of obedience. Now, obedience is still good. Right. But when obedience becomes our focus, we become Pharisees. Right. That’s right. And our kids, God, one of these, we tell parents a lot. What kind of God are you showing to your kids? We get kids all the time coming to us and saying, uh, you know, I don’t like the God.

They don’t really say it articulated exactly like this, but they’re like, I don’t like my parents, God. And it’s like, why? Because the God is harsh. That God is demanding. That God is, is, is critical because they’re seeing it through what they’re seeing in their parents. Right. Well, what does Hebrews four 16 say, let us approach the throne with grace.

Mm-hmm . With confidence that the throne of God is. So I ask, I ask dads a lot. It’s like, what’s your throne look like? You know, what, what does your throne look like when your kids approach you? When your three year old approaches you, when your seven year old approaches you what’s that throne look like, right?

Is it a throne of grace and mercy that they can approach with confidence mm-hmm or is it a place they’re scared to death to go? Right. Right. And I, and my kids were, they weren’t terrified of me at that first decade, but you know what, after the basketball game, they didn’t want, they went home with mom, you know?

Right. Because they were gonna get, and it was all with good intentions. Right. You know, I tell dads all the time. It’s like, dude, you’re, I, I don’t, I’m not questioning your intentions. I’m question your methods. Right. You know? And so, because your intentions are awesome, you love your kids. You want the best one.

I don’t ever meet a dad that goes, well, I hope my kid doesn’t, you know, is a loser. You know, it just, it doesn’t happen. Right. Right. You know, we don’t want, nobody wants that, but, but we’re doing things that, and, and so that’s what we talk about is that building that culture in your home where it’s almost like a greenhouse, if you can think of it in terms of a greenhouse, like, you know, why do we put plants in a greenhouse rather than out in the elements, especially young plants, because they get the right water, they get the right food, they get the right light, you know, and so that they can grow healthy.

Well, what if our home is like the toxic culture outside that those plants are in, versus if it’s a nurturing environment where those relationships can flourish. Mm-hmm .

40:51 Chris Grainger
And I think for guys too, you know, to that point of what you’re growing. I always point people back to Galatians five, you you’re growing are the fruit, you know, do your kids see that fruit, you know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

Are they seeing that in you? Cause to your point, if you’re a dad and your, your seven year old, uh, you know, misses a couple shot in a basketball game and, and they’re afraid to come to you because they know they’re gonna get a scouting or something like they’re just gonna constantly be beaten down versus lifted up.

And I think as dad, that’s, I, I love how you talk about, you know, uh, if we listen when they’re five and how we work with them, when they’re five, they’ll be able to talk to us when they’re 15. I mean, and I think we’re totally missing that point, man. Cause I,

41:34 Don Manning
for me, well, you know, if you go back to Galatians five, I mean through the spirits at the end, I think every, every dad, since we’re talking to dads, every dad should read Galatians five.

Oh yeah, yeah. The whole, whole chapter, because the, the Galatians five, one sense. It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Mm-hmm . And so then it goes on to that. Basically freedom is the power to do what God wants us to do. It’s not the right to do whatever we want. That’s that’s the world’s freedom that the godly freedom is the power to do what Jesus wants us to do.

And then in, in 19, it talks about all the, the, the fruits of the flesh, if you will, right? The Bochy, anger, sexual, you know, all the stuff list this horrific list. And then it says, but the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patients, kindness, and all that. And so I, you know what, it really goes along with what we teach at critical family.

How do you help your children to be first? How do you help you to be free? And then, because, you know, you can only be as you’re, you’re only teach your children be as free as you first are yourself. Right? But then how do you teach your children to be free? There’s this process, you know, that you’re going through that as they get older, you know, into their teenage years.

I mean, eventually they’re gonna 18, they’re leaving. I’m about kid to,

I’ve never worried about him. I I’ve never worried about, in fact, my second daughter mad, I never will forget it. We leave, we drop her off at Texas a and. And, uh, we were talking about this the other night. She’s she’s, uh, you know, she’s older now, but she was 18 freshman and, you know, and, and a, and they have that, and there’s 10,000 freshmen, you know, probably more now, but I mean 10,000 freshmen and they have this deal called how week.

So they have a whole week where the kids are not in class, but they’re going through just social stuff to get ready for the, you know, to get acclimated to the deal. And so we dropped her off. It was really heartbreaking dropping her off, you know, we we’re, and the next day, or that night, um, she calls us and she’s like, who thought of this?

This is my daughter calling us. She’s like, there are 10,000 freshmen that are wild in this city. And there’s like one policeman, you know, but, but you know, we, weren’t, that’s a funny story, but it was like, we weren’t worried about her. Why? Because we knew her. And we knew where her connection was with God now was Madeline.

Perfect. No, but we knew we tr we had, we had grown up with her. We had pursued the relationship with her enough and we saw her relationship with God. You know, so often we got these parents and there’s, there’s still, you know, literally controlling everything of their child. And they really don’t know their child.

They just know their behaviors. They know maybe what’s on their phone maybe, but I mean, but they really don’t know the child and they certainly don’t know their child’s relationship with God. And then they wonder why that child abandons God when they go to college or to wherever they go afterwards, we gotta know ’em, you know, and that’s what we, and, and that’s why we talk about that was the big revelation for me as a parent is I don’t need to pursue their behavior.

I need to pursue the relationship and out of the relationship will come behavior and trust. And we, and our goal is to give them freedom, going back to Galatians fine. You know, that I wanna give them more and more freedom as they’re getting older in their teenage years, because when they go to college or wherever they go, they gotta know what to do by then they gotta be doing it on their own.

Right

45:30 Chris Grainger
now, the, the dad is listening. Don, who’s got the 15 year old and they haven’t built that foundation. They don’t have that previous years. What can he start doing to, to start, you know, building and creating that culture? That’s a great question. Yeah. Cause three years that guy may be going to Texas a and M so what can he do if he’s got a short runway, you know, what

do

45:54 Don Manning
we do?

Yeah, well, the, the, the first thing is, um, to listen, you know, um, we, we talk about, uh, there’s, there’s two things I would tell dads. At this time is, and two of the biggest lessons that I, I am learning as a parent, the first one I learned was to be encouraging. And again, whole course on that. There’s the, the, both these words I’m gonna tell you whole course on that in base cap that you can dig into, and these courses are like, you can listen to ’em in an hour or two.

Okay. The whole course were like four or five videos each or six. And they’re like each video’s like 10 or 15 minutes each. So it’s not like you’re reading a book. Right. You know, I mean, you can, and there’s an audio version. You listen to it car, if you wanna. I mean, it’s super easy to process, but, but, uh, but both of ’em I say, first of all, is we, we tell, I would tell dads two things to be encouraging and listen.

And let’s talk about listening first, because that’s really, when you’re dealing with that 15 year old, the first thing to do is you gotta get to know him. You gotta get, and, and you don’t get to know him through your, we say, you know, who wants a lecture? You know, what is a lecture? It’s a long tedious reprimand, right.

And nobody know who likes that. I don’t like getting lectured. Do you like getting lectured? No. No, not at all. So we say let’s learn to listen instead of lecture, because what happens is we start to hear things and realize that the trust has probably been broken in the relationship at this time because we haven’t listened and we’re not safe.

We, we talk a lot and listening to become a safe Haven. And remember, we don’t change our relationships in days and weeks. It happens in months and years. So, so you’re gonna start listening and realize it’s not gonna work at first and you’re gonna get a lot of one word answers. And we even teach you in the courses, how to listen better.

You know how to ask questions better, how to ask inquisitive questions rather than accusatory questions. What do you think about. Instead of what do you thinking? I mean, thinky that’s right. Why’d you do that? yeah. Instead of looking, you know, looking at tone and questions and being patient and just listening, Hey, you know, and you can even tell, you know, look, you know what, I, haven’t been a very good listening dad and I’m interested in you and I’d really like, and you could even tell him, Hey, you’re finally becoming interesting.

You know, when you were seven, you weren’t that interesting, but now you’re actually becoming interesting. Right. But, you know, just confessing to him and saying, you know, Hey, I. I want you to know that I’m gonna start to pursue you more, whether you like it or not, I’m coming after you. I’m coming after you.

I wanna listen to you. I wanna hear what your thoughts, I wanna hear your life and, and it’s safe. You know, you can tell me things, uh, you know, I don’t wanna get you in trouble. This isn’t about, you know, let’s because they’re 15 that are ready to talk about life, you know? And, and I wanna, you know, we may wanna counsel you in some areas, but, but let’s listen first.

And then just to be encouraging so often, you know, we, we talk about teenagers when they come home, it’s the most critical place they come to every day. Mm-hmm, their, that’s where their, their, their parents are just on and, and dads will say to us, you know, but I gotta get on ’em. I got, yeah. Yeah, that’s right.

But I mean, you have to get on about everyth. I mean, you know, and, um, try to find things to encourage them with and even giving them little things that they can be successful with, you know, little freedoms, Hey, I wanna be able to trust you. Can you go do, you know, just finding things that can do that, but, but just finding, you know, so often we’ve gotta, I see with parents a lot, I’ve got a kid who’s making pretty good grades in school.

They’re pretty good athlete, you know, or, or they’re pretty good at their musical instrument or whatever, but all they get from their parents is, is how you could be better. Right. You know, why aren’t you enough basically. And, and it really just instead, man, I am so proud of your, um, you know, I I’ll give you a little story of how that works out with, with my 15 year old, my youngest, he was playing football and, um, uh, he still is.

I mean, but, but I, but you know, I was, I was concerned about his work ethic. Because it, you know, and I was paying for him to, I, I wanted to help him as a buddy of mine. That’s a, a really good football coach, you know, trainer. And so I put him with him and it wasn’t cheap to do it, but I mean, I said, you know, this is, and, uh, but he wasn’t really coming back and doing the work on his own.

Right. All right. So as a typical parent, what am I gonna do? You gotta work harder, dude. If you’re gonna be successful, you gotta be, you know, you gotta be more. And, um, instead what I did was I, I, I paid the guy in a large check, you know, for multiple sessions, had a check in my hand and we were driving. I said, I said, McKay, I want you to be a hard worker.

And, and I want you to be successful in football. And I believe you can be, I believe you’ve got it in you to be your best. And I believe that. Um, and I said, um, I want you, I want you to look at this check. I gave him the check and he looked at it. He’s like, wow, that’s a lot of money. And I said, you know what, dude, you’re worth it.

You’re worth every debt I’m spending there. And what I’d like you to do is, and I said, I’m not gonna be the dad. That’s on you all the time to make sure that you’re doing your exercises and stuff on your believe, you can do it. Believe I’ll help you develop the system to do it. I’ll help you in any way you can.

But I want you to do this on your own, and I want you because you’re worth it for me to pay that to you, pay that for you. And I believe you can do it on your own. And I believe you wanna be the best football player you can. And you know what? It took a little while, but today I’m working out with him because he’s working out every day.

He’s been doing it for two years because you see, but, and we’re connected in a way. It’s not, he’s not avoiding me cuz I’m gonna get onto him all the time. He’s figured out how to do it himself and, and those that’s how you reconnect. He had a problem, you know, and, and, and the problem was, and I could see the problem.

Yeah. But it wasn’t wanted to call, so had the power relationship and encourage that, make sense, make

52:17 Chris Grainger
complete sense complete. And I, I love the story. I mean, I think that’s something that so many guys can relate to. I, I, when you handed him that check, there was a connection moment there. I mean, all of a sudden, you know, you’re worth it.

And just that, that what a powerful statement for our fathers hate to her son. And it sounds like it’s, uh, it, it turned into a very fruitful now you’re probably in better shape for it too. Right. ,

52:41 Don Manning
I’m starting, he’s in a lot better shape than I am for sure. But, you know, but what’s cool abouts is that, you know, go back to that dad with a 15 year old that you know, is, is struggling with the connection.

Yeah. Start by just asking them questions and being interested in their lives and realize you’re gonna meet some resistance. Right. And, and then start by being encouraging to them and, and avoiding, you know, even, it’s almost like, um, you know, when you get into those situations where you’ve got a dysfunctional relationship, it’s kinda like, you almost have to, you know, if you think about folding a piece of paper, if it’s folded over and you fold it straight up, it’s just gonna go back.

But if you fold it way back over, that’s how you get it straight. Right. Well, that’s kinda almost what you have to do is, is man really avoid the criticism because we’re just naturally critical as guys and, and we are naturally on them just so back off of that and just let it go and learn to listen and learn to be encouraging and just watch that, you know, you’re, you’re kinda like you’ve got some negative soil going on.

Well, you gotta get that soil healthy again. Yeah. And, and, and that takes a lot of, of, of. Of cultivating to make that happen. Yep. I love it. Hey

53:53 Chris Grainger
Don, let’s take our last break and it’ll be right back.

I get a chance to talk to guys every week and one consistent struggle that keeps ING is the lack of community. To address this. We created the lion stand to start building a community Christian brothers with the aim of serving them resources to combat the darkness. We are working hard to bring encouragement, inspiration, and tips to help you be the leader, your predestined to be as part of the lines.

Then you’ll also be first in line with new opportunities, events, and resources that are designed to serve you in your journey. So hop over to the line within.us to sign up for the lion. Stand for free. That’s the line within.us and become a member of the lion stand today.

So Don you have taught us so much about crazy cool families, you know, pursuing God, building those relationships, creating that culture. So it’s, it’s, it’s the frameworks there guys. I’ll I’ll think of everything in the show notes, but before we, we wrap up today, Don on the line within us, we have what’s called feeding time.

So I got it’s a lightning round. I got eight questions. I’m gonna fire at you. Uh, you, you quick, quick fire back the best you can. And we’ll just get through this. This will give some, the listeners a little bit of insight to, to, to you even more you as a person. Uh, but it’s a lot of fun. I think you may enjoy if you’re willing to play along.

Absolutely. All right. All right. Now question number one. What is your favorite thing about being a

55:19 Don Manning
dad? Uh, favorite thing about being a dad is the, is just watching my kids grow in their faith. Good and, and grow in relationship. What’s your least favorite thing about being a. Oh, the, uh, I would say probably the financial responsibility of it.

I mean, I got seven kids and we got a big life and it’s like, it feels like a lot of times I am carrying a big burden, but you know, on the financial side of things, I

55:49 Chris Grainger
understand that buddy, all, all the way. So, uh, what are you currently struggling

55:53 Don Manning
with right now? You know what? I am struggling with changing habits.

I am actually right now, um, I was telling you, I’m leaving my job to move more into almost fulltime. Crazy cool family. I’ve business interest. Yeah. This year, a transition here, and I’ve decided to take everything away and try to see what comes back on. And I’ve realized how many just habits I have that are very hard to change.

Just things where I’m not utilizing my time and energy. Well, and then I’m like, of course I can change. I’ll just do this. And I just keep falling back in the hole over and over again. I’m digging my way out slowly, but it’s been tough.

56:33 Chris Grainger
Understand. I, the struggle’s real. I get it, man. I get it. well, so what are you most afraid of,

56:41 Don Manning
uh, you know, right now as I’m D diving off into this ministry, one of the things I have a fear of is, um, not providing for my family.

Okay. You know, I, I realize that I do, I provide for my family at a pretty high level. And one of the things God’s shown me is, is that I have a real fear of, uh, I, I, you know, if I were to have to, and I wouldn’t go down to where I was broke, you know, cause I could, there’s, there’s some things, but, but even if I had to go down to where let’s sad to sell my house and I had to, um, you know, just really radically changed the way I’m living and go to my fam, I would feel the Lord just said, I would feel like a failure.

And even my kids have told me, as I’m stepping into this, they’ve said, dad, don’t worry about. But I have this, this, uh, pride, if you will, of wanting to provide a certain level for my family. I

57:37 Chris Grainger
understand. I get it. I think that that, that answer resonates with a lot of listeners out there. So next question.

What do you spend too much time doing last year?

57:48 Don Manning
Um, so, um, this is a funny story. My kids, my boys have a game that we, um, that we play together called clash Royal. OK. And clash Royal is this, uh, video game on the phone or the iPad. OK. And, um, we’ve been playing it for like five or six years and I started it with the best intentions of helping, you know, I’ve learning the game with them.

Cause I don’t play Xbox I’m way too old though. I can’t function. Those controllers just drive me insane. But, um, but this is a game I could play on my iPad. And so it’s a very, it’s it’s, it’s a really cool game actually. I’m addicted to it. And so I can’t quit playing it. And I, I have, I’ve literally, like, I I’ve deleted it from my phone, like from my iPad about 4,000 times, because I keep, cause I’ll start playing it and I’ll play it for like two hours.

Yeah. You know? And so, so absolutely. I’ve gotta, I cut down on my, or, or eliminate one, one of the two

58:43 Chris Grainger
all next to last question. What, so you, you said, you said you were struggling with habits. I’m curious. What is a new habit that you, that you want create this

58:51 Don Manning
coming year? Prayer for one? Um, I, I feel like that I, um, I want to deepen, uh, I’m on a quest to, uh, change every family we can, that God will put into our lives.

And, and I feel like, uh, you know, you, you mentioned this to me in our pre-deal. I got this, you know, is what you said in your past life. And, and so often I’m an achiever. So I feel like I got this and, and honestly I get distracted in trying to connect with God for a period of time and to really invite him into everything I’m doing.

Right. But I feel like it’s essential to what I’m doing. Right. So it’s like something I’m, I’m okay at. I’m not poor at it. I mean, I’m not awful. I, I pray and you know, and I have a walk with the Lord for sure. It’s like, I feel like it’s essential to deepen that going forward. And I’m just okay. At, okay.

59:45 Chris Grainger
Hey, so many guys out there struggle with prayers.

I mean, I, I get it. I mean, and we’ll be praying for you that that habit is something that continues to grow in your life. And the last question for you, Don, what is the one thing that you hope the guys listen out there? Remember from our

59:58 Don Manning
conversation today, man, that, um, family and life are all about relationships that, um, when you forget that.

It, it, you know, it’s first our relationship with God and then our relationship with others of which those others, the most important others are, the people God put in our family. He hand chose you to lead your family and to put the exact right people into there. Mm-hmm . And so those relationships and, and the, you know, uh, those people are the most important in our lives.

And if we don’t have, if we have relationship with them, everything else will flow. And if we don’t have relationship with them and they don’t have relationship with each other, everything breaks down.

00:46 Chris Grainger
It does well, Don, this has been great. So where, where do you want guys to go? Of course, we’ll sync up everything in the show notes, but if, if for those that are just listening, where should they go to learn more connect with you?

Crazy. Cool family. Just, just, can you point ’em in the right.

01:00 Don Manning
Yeah. So three things I tell people, one of ’em is our book it’s available on Amazon. You can get a Kindle version so you can, uh, just, uh, Google or I’m not Google, but in Amazon, just put in crazy cool family book and you’ll get it. Second, we have a podcast.

Crazy cool family podcast that, uh, uh, that Chris is, I don’t know when this is airing, but I got Chris on this telling his story and it was amazing. So if you haven’t heard Chris’s full story, I think I’ve got a lot of your story out. I would go to our podcast and listen to the Chris. You got a lot of my

01:32 Chris Grainger
story and nobody has heard by the way.

So, uh, the listeners out there and when it drops on crazy cool family, we’ll be promoting it too, but yeah, check it out. Cause Don he’s, he’s got a masterful way of pulling stuff out that I wasn’t ready to share. So, uh,

01:45 Don Manning
Hey, I’ve learned how to listen, man. You know, I’ve learned how to listen over 30 years of parent, but, um, yeah, so the crazy cool family podcast, uh, this, um, you know, and, uh, I would encourage dads to go back and this, this podcast will come out in the fall for, uh, probably for you, right.

Is that, or is this coming out great? If you go back this summer, we did a, uh, podcast on all seven of our kids. And so we, um, and you can go back and listen to that. And it’s really cool because they talked to you about how they were parented when they were growing up. So from an adult perspective, you see the parenting and also you see like how to parent different kids.

Mm-hmm because when you’re pursuing relationship, all your kids are different. And so you gotta pursue that. So the crazy cool family podcast is there, but really the biggest thing we want people to go to is our free base camp membership site. And so base camp. And what’s a membership site, a reason it’s, it’s a series of courses and other material all related to our crazy cool family teaching.

So we have, um, and really what I’d love you to do is go into it’s base camp. Crazy cool family.com. Uh, and it’ll take you about a minute to sign up for it and. Really recommend you go to the core courses that we’ve been referring to a little bit. There’s 10 courses on there that if you listen to those, you will have the best framework I know about how to build your family.

I mean, and it’s relationship based. It’s culture based it’s it shows you this, just this playbook for how to build your family and gives you this, um, this ground, this grounding, if you will, that you can rely on you don’t have to worry about what I should be doing. Cause it’s all right there to give you direction.

Right. And

03:22 Chris Grainger
guys, I’ve taken some of, again, I’ve read the book. I’ve, I’ve listened to this podcast and I’ve I’ve me and my wife were work. We’re working through. The base camp stuff is phenomenal. And so guys, there’s no excuses. You can create a crazy cool family, but you need to lean in and do the work. So Don, any, any, any, uh, last words

03:39 Don Manning
you have for us last word relates to what you said.

Everybody can win at this game. Right? You know, this, this is a game that, Hey, I don’t dad. I don’t care where you’re starting from. I don’t care where you’re starting in your life. I mean, I don’t care where you’re starting. I didn’t start with a pedigree. You know, Chris didn’t start. Chris is building a crazy cool family.

He’s overcome so much to get there. And you know, no matter where you are, we can, that’s this, the cool thing about this game is we can all win, right? And we can all win when we pursue relationships first with God, with others. So, and the other, the last thing I’ll tell you is, is God handpicked you for the job.

That’s it. You were handpicked to be the, the leader of your home. He didn’t look up just like with your kids. He didn’t look up one day and, and go to Gabriel and say, Gabriel, we messed this deal up. I gave him the wrong wife. I gave him wrong kids. I put there’s no way bill was gonna be able to lead this family.

He’s he’s got it. And he’s got you and you can do this and your handpicked for the job by God to lead your family. I love

04:46 Chris Grainger
it. We’re just gonna leave it right there, Don. This has been great. Thank you for coming on the line within us, man. It’s it’s been wonderful and so much inspiration for our, for

our

04:54 Don Manning
listeners out there.

Awesome. Thanks Chris. And thanks to all your dads, man. You guys go get ’em.

05:03 Chris Grainger
You wouldn’t jump in a boxing ring and expect to win without training, right? So why do you think you can win to battle? Get Satan without putting in the. For the Christian man, it starts with knowing scripture and your heart to help you out and get started with your training. We created a free guide of 10 scriptures.

You need to fight like a lion, go grab this free resource, and I’m gonna come alongside of you in a series of personal and engaging messages, design the challenge and help you grow. So get equipped today with scripture, that will help you fight the battle you are in. Visit the lion within.us to get started today.

That’s the line within.us to unlock this free guide. You need to fight like a lion.

What a powerful conversation with Don Manning. I’ll tell you what, the stuff that he is building at crazy cool family. It’s unreal. I mean, Don, he, he and I, we just instantly connected, uh, a friendship there. His book. Phenomenal. Here’s a, go ahead. I’m gonna give him a spoiler alert. That’s right. Yeah, his book’s gonna be the book of the week.

Imagine that, but, uh, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s great guys. I tell you what, there’s so much that he taught us here and how to lead our families. Well, and guys, I know if you’re listening to it, if you’re this far into the podcast, you want to lead your family. Well, I get that. And it’s through connections like this, that we’re trying to bring you from the line within us to help you get there.

Cause you can’t do it by yourself, right? You can’t do it. The holy Spirit’s gonna guide you, but you also need to have men and ideas and concepts that are gonna help put you in the right direction. Guys, I’m utilizing a lot of Don’s tools myself. I wanna have a better relationship with my kids. I want my kids who have be best friends with them, with each other.

You know, me and my brother, we we’re, we’re we’re friends, but we’re not best friends. You know, we grew apart and, and I still love him, but I want my prayer is for my children to be the best friends to each other. And I think you guys want that too. So guys again, go back, listen, listen to this one again. If you need some more ideas, go check out the, the show notes for all the ways you connect with Don and the crazy cool family, the things that they’re BU that, that they’re building to serve others.

So the question a week this week, again, how is your family story playing out? Cause if your family story is not playing out the way that Don is is, is described his, you can change it. You have the ability to change it, but it starts with you. And once you get that right, again, pursuing God, building those relationships, creating this culture, all that stuff starts with you.

You other Christian leader, you can do this, go to the website, check us out in the line with dots, resources, all the stuff, the Bible study, the courses, uh, the blogs, it’s all out there to serve you 10 scriptures to fight like a lion. Nine habits that every man needs guys, the stuff is there. I’m literally building this stuff.

We are every day to serve you, to help you be the leader, your predestined to be. So guys, I pray. This served you well, come back on Friday for our fun Friday. We’ll wrap all this up. I’m gonna give you a couple good tips. We’ll give you some ideas to consider to how to make your family the crazy cool family.

All right, guys. So again, thank you so much. Share this with others. Give us a rating and review. Have a great week. Get out, unleash the lion within.