00:00 Chris Grainger
Welcome to the Line 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. This week we’re gonna be talking about sharpening your dead edge. That’s right. That’s right. But before we get too far in this conversation, you know, we, how we always start every line within us is with scripture and a scripture of the week, Ephesians six 10, uh, through 12.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the devil schemes for our struggle as not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.

Guys, we need to know who we are, who we’re fighting, right? What we’re up against. So if you want more on this scripture, go check out the spiritual kickoff that released two days ago, back on Monday. It was right before this one. I really unpacked that scripture, gave you some insight, gave you some, some ideas to consider when it comes to this topic, to be able to be, to, to serve well, to be ready to fight the battle.

So for today, guys, I’m so excited We have with us Mr. Larry Hagner. Okay, Now, Larry, he’s phenomenal. What, what, what he, what he has going on? He created the Dad Edge podcast. Okay? He’s been featured on many, many different podcasts. He’s like one of the top dad podcasts on iTunes. You know his show? Over 5 million downloads.

Unreal, Unreal. He’s got two best selling books. You know, he lives in St. Louis with his wife and they have four boys, so he has a lot going on. We’re gonna be unpacking a lot of stuff, the things that he’s learned, the things that he’s shared with other people. So I’m so excited to have him all week. I’m so excited he’s going, He’s gonna bring it to just get ready to sharpen your dead edge here with Larry Hagner.

Larry Hagner, welcome to, to Lion Within Us. How you doing today, sir?

02:06 Larry Hagner
What’s going on? Man? It’s so good to be here and I, I love the title of

02:09 Chris Grainger
your show. Well, appreciate that. I mean, it’s, it’s pretty cool. A lot of guys, I think it resonates with the guys out there, so, I mean, they like that lion, right,

02:18 Larry Hagner
Right.

That is right. Yeah. We, we do like the lion, like, we’re like, Yes, that’s masculine, That’s powerful, That’s leadership, that’s protection. We resonate with.

02:29 Chris Grainger
It resonates my friend, and, and I’m so excited today cuz it your show. I love your show, The Dead Edge. And I’ve already, you know, talked about it with our guys.

It’s gonna be synced up in our show notes for the guys to check out. Cuz if you’re not, if you’re subscribing to the line within us and you’re not subscribing to the dead edge, you’re missing, you’re missing out. So like, fix that now. Right? But you know, Larry, I gave a intro, you know, just based off the, the information that, that, you know, was provided.

But man, that’s just me reading words. I, I love to hear people’s story just directly from them. So may give our listeners a little bit about your, your origin, what’s going on?

03:02 Larry Hagner
Yeah, so I am the host and founder of, uh, the Dad Edge podcast and the Dad Edge Alliance. Uh, that podcast is obviously our podcast.

Adage Alliance is our mastermind community for men, husbands, and fathers, uh, who wanna elevate their marriages, create better connection with their kids, optimize their physical, mental, emotional health, uh, and be a more effective leader within themselves, within their family, within their faith. I don’t shy away from that.

I know that this is obviously your faith-based podcast and, um, that is the mission my friend, and we teach men, uh, true tactical skills as it relates to all of those things. Mm-hmm. .

03:39 Chris Grainger
Absolutely. I mean, I, I love all the areas that you touch on in the faith component of it For sure. And you know, one thing Larry, maybe just to get your take on it out to the gate, you know, when you think about just Christianity in the church, sometimes ma you know, being masculine, that’s just not their, it’s just a little bit more feminized.

Or do you hear that from your community at all? From trying to, you know, how can I, as a man or a dad plugin and, and be able to serve, you know, in a, in a church setting, uh, today? Cuz it, things have just really, they really changed.

04:10 Larry Hagner
So in a, in a church setting?

04:12 Chris Grainger
Yeah. Or just, just, just by not your faith, just in general.

04:15 Larry Hagner
Yeah. So just, yeah. You know, my, my faith in general and just, you know, to, to answer that question, I mean, so. . Um, my personal journey with, with faith and, and leadership, to be honest, up until about two years ago, I was, uh, I had more of an arms length relationship. Mm-hmm. with God and meaning like, um, I wasn’t the most prayerful person in the world.

I identified myself as a follower. I identified myself as a churchgoer cause I was church, but I was sort of like half in, half out. But I, I realized it, but I didn’t. And what, you know, when you have really great mentors in your life, like I do mm-hmm. , you know, that look out for you in your best interest, uh, that call you out on things.

I had a spiritual mentor of mine a couple years back really call me out on some things and I helped me identify that I really wasn’t being a good spiritual leader for my family. And, um, not, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was just more or less not being effective. Mm-hmm. And he really challenged me on that.

And I really dove into my faith and, and actually is. It was a part of a program called Operation Timothy, where I went through a two year bible study, uh, with a mentor. I was a Timothy, uh, the, my mentor was my Paul. And, uh, really got in touch with my faith and got really in depth with it, had a better understanding of, you know, who Jesus Christ is, who God is.

Uh, and I’ve really implemented that, not only in, in my brand, but within my family. And, uh, it is just, it’s, it’s brought so much fulfillment to what I’m doing. I mean, everything I was doing was already fulfilling, but now yeah, I would, that fulfillment is 10 x

05:53 Chris Grainger
Man, that’s so crazy cuz I mean, so Operation Timothy, I actually wrote a, uh, article recently.

It’s on the line within us and I, and I, I titled it Find Your Paul, Find Your Barnabas, Find your Timothy. And you know, so far as building like we called our, our your Lines, then your men’s group. We need to be, uh, you know, appalled somebody’s life. We need to be at Timothy, we need to find a barnas. And you can be all three at the same time and different people, you know, depending on the scenarios.

I’m just curious, man, uh, maybe talk a little bit about that Operation Timothy program. First of all, how’d you find that spiritual mentor? Cause I feel like guys, we, we, we searched to mentors out there for, to help us in our career and to make money and, you know, do stuff like that. But sometimes finding a spiritual mentors, I don’t know if it’s intimidating or which, don’t think about it.

I’m, I’m curious on how that actually worked out.

06:42 Larry Hagner
Yeah, so luckily my spiritual mentor was very unexpected. Um, okay. I met a, I met a man here locally here in St. Louis who ran in an organization called St. Louis Mastermind. And it was for business owners, but believe it or not, it was actually mostly for people in the mortgage and real estate space.

Uh, I’m in neither one of those. Well, I, I invest in a little bit of real estate, but I, not to the degree that obviously he caters to. And he ran this networking group, um, called St. Louis Mastermind. It was basically to help, uh, businesses that had to do with real estate in some way, shape or form, uh, come together in a, in a culture that was around generosity, which I thought was fascinating because if you go to most networking events, usually it comes from a very selfish place of like, Hey, how can I leverage these relationships to grow my business?

His was the opposite. It was like, how can I give more and, and do more for other people? And what, what would naturally happen is the law of reciprocity would happen. You know, you’re helping people and then naturally they wanna help you. So I met this, this gentleman named Brian who was running this, He was the vice president of mortgages for a big bank here in St.

Louis. And I was just, I was really taken back because once a month, a third Thursday of every month, there were hundreds of people that would come to this event. Brian would always have, um, it was an hour and a half long. He’d always have a speaker and he would speak and he would teach like some lessons on how to connect with people and that kind of thing.

And I just loved this guy. And he became a really big fan of what I, what I did over at that edge. And he actually invited me to speak at one of his events and we became really good friends. And it wasn’t until, um, he saw me posting some things online about the podcast and being quite honest, I was using language on my podcast that I don’t use anymore, and even in my posts.

And he sat me down for coffee one day and he said, Hey, you know, I’m a big fan of your work and I consider us friends. And I’ve noticed that you’re very blunt and bold in some of the language you use. I don’t know if it’s really in line with who you are as a man and who you are as what you stand for.

And quite frankly, I think what you’re trying to do is, is, is uh, gain the attention of people and you think the best way to do that is by using language that isn’t really in line with you. And I really thought about that and I was like, Yeah, that’s absolutely true. And it wasn’t, I wasn’t trying to get negative attention.

I just noticed that other podcast hosts and people who hosted big platforms were kind of like more. Like yelling in your face type thing. Yeah. Not that I, and I didn’t go to that degree at all. Mm-hmm. , but I would be a little bit more forceful, a little bit more direct. And even when I would do that, it didn’t even really, it didn’t feel so much like me.

I can be forceful and I can be direct, but it’s not a, it’s not a part of me that I like to leverage too often. Mm-hmm. and I was using language that wasn’t in line with me. And that’s what, that’s where you have people that truly care about you. And he basically just said, You, he sat me down, he was like, Well, how’s your relationship with Christ?

And to be honest, I was like, Come on man. Like I don’t wanna have this conversation. I was kind of upset about it, like, but long story short, that conversation and that coffee really landed with me. Not the coffee, the conversation over. Right, right, right. And I thought about it and I reached back out to Brian and I thanked him for being so bold and brave and, and calling me out, cuz I know that that was actually difficult for him.

It wasn’t even a month later, I got this calendar request, said Brian, Brian McCrae is inviting you to be a part of Operation Timothy as your Paul and I knew what Operation Timothy was cause I’m also a part of another organization that Brian and I are a part of called cbmc, which is Christian Businessmen Connect here in St.

Louis. Once every quarter, 350 men come together for a speaker and a breakfast prayer freely and through in, in a Christian atmosphere. And we learn how to elevate each other in our businesses through the, through the lens of, of Christ and our calling. And they offer that program and it’s totally free.

All you have to do is give your time and then your mentor, your Paul, is giving his time. And I went through that process and it took two years and I just graduated from it back in May. And it has been a total game changer. And what I can tell you now to finish the story is being a spiritual leader means you have to lead your family as well.

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . And I have four boys. 16. 14, eight. And. Especially my two older boys are very, and they’re very, they’re really into their faith. And to be honest, that’s probably a blessing. Cause I haven’t been the best at leading them. I’m better now. My 16 year old asked me, he’s like, I really want to do this operation Timothy that you’ve been doing, and you don’t get a 16 year old that asks you that.

And as soon as I graduated, you know, I got the, I got the blessing from my mentor, Paul, or uh, Brian, who is my Paul. And I am now currently taking Ethan, my oldest, through Operation Timothy. And we’re a quarter of the way through. Oh, that is so awesome. It’s,

11:24 Chris Grainger
it’s been awesome. So you’re his Paul, essentially.

Okay. Cause that was my follow up. Are you gonna be a Paul? So you’ve already figured that out. And that’s your son. Correct. Yeah. Man, that’s gonna lead to some incredible conversations and opportunities for you, you guys, to grow just your, your, your dad’s son relationship to a level that, you know, most dads can’t even, can’t even match it.

Yeah, I agree. So is, is it a, is it a, is it like a, a structured program of, of like, here’s the scripture you go through and then here, like questions just to kind of keep the conversation going? I’m, I’m sure it’s some type of structure to it.

12:02 Larry Hagner
Very, very structured. So it’s all online. Okay. And what you basically do is there’s, there’s three quote unquote books and each book modules, whatever you wanna call it, each book has, is titled a certain thing.

They have six to seven chapters in each book. Out of the three, there’s probably a hundred questions. Easy. Oh, wow. So call it 300 reflective questions. And basically what you do is you’re going through scripture, you’re going through study, and then there’s these reflective questions that you, you answer.

And basically what the Paul, what your Paul does is he guides you through those answers. Not that the, but, so like for instance, um, You know, one of the reflective questions is, you know, if I can remember, one would be, you know, Jesus suffered and died on the cross. You know? Right. What does this say about, about Jesus Christ?

What does this say about humanity? What does this even say about God to give up his only son? You know, what are your thoughts on that? And to have those reflective questions like that where you look at faith, not as like the surface level thing, but you actually get in the trenches of it. Right. And you really understand like, I mean, think, just think about that one thing for a second.

Yeah. This is the way I explained it to my son. You know, God gave his only son because he loved us so much, and I never really understood that I have 12 years of Catholic, you know, private school education. I’ve always been Catholic, you know, And, but to be honest, I never really got that. Mm-hmm. . And the way my mentor explained it to me is like, Larry, think about that for a second.

Think of you loving your neighborhood so much that you would sacrifice Ethan for the sake of saving them from hell. Right? And I’m like, Uh, yeah, I’d never do that. That happens. Right. He’s like, Exactly. He’s like, So think about if we ever doubt is God a loving God. Like, think about that. You know? Yeah.

There’s also like this, there’s this part of God that’s so empathetic, that’s so compassionate, that’s so forgiving that can you imagine that had to have hurt God to see his son die. Yeah. Like Jesus wasn’t the only one that suffered. And then you start to look at the lens of like, Wow, he loves me that much.

Yeah. Like that’s, I never thought of it that way. Mm-hmm. . Cause I think we think about those things on a very surface level way. And then when we think about em through that lens of like, why I couldn’t never do that. Well, of course you could. Right, Right. Yeah

14:24 Chris Grainger
man, that is, that is awesome. Why? Definitely. If there’s a way maybe we can sync up a link or something to, to some of those resources.

Cuz it sounds like that’d be something guys could jump all over and Yeah. For, for your younger kids, man, I like, I like, I like staying on the the kid thing while we’re there. You know, how. Any advice? What are you doing there to, to lead them? Cause what’d you say? They four and six, Was that how old you Yeah.

Yes. That’s a different conversation versus it sounds like Ethan’s 16. Right. So I mean, how, how, how do you mentor mentoring and shepherding them, you know, in your

14:55 Larry Hagner
journey? Well, so yeah. It’s totally different, right? So, um, with my 14, 16 year old, uh, it’s, the conversations are very different, you know? Mm-hmm.

especially my 16 year old even versus my 14 year old right now because, um, you’re, you’re supposed to take, you’re supposed to do this discipleship on a one-on-one basis, right? I could take both Ethan and Mason through it, but I choose to take them through it separately and because I will be taking Mason through it as well and on all four boys.

But, um, my conversations with Mason, my 14 year old are a little different than they’re with Ethan. Ethan. It’s now way more in depth. Right. Um, and then with my six and eight year old, the, it really is more of. Fun approach. Right. Okay. So like my eight year old in particular, like instead of reading a bedtime story, we read like his kid Bible.

Yeah. And he is highly entertained by that. You know, he, he likes it, he wants it, he wants to hear stories of of David and, and, and Moses and yeah. You know, he, he finds them very entertaining and I am in my, in my humble opinion, if he’s entertained and he enjoys it through that lens right now, then so be it.

And I’m good with that.

15:59 Chris Grainger
Yeah, no kidding. So basically you meet ’em where they’re at and you use material that’s appropriate for them and it resonates. And a lot of those kid bibles, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re solid. I mean it’s good solid instruction, but a lot of ’em have good illustrations and things like that too that can just have, make that conversation just flow.

Correct. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, hey, we’ll let’s take a quick break Larry, and then we’ll jump back cause I want to ask you something around, for dads out there. Myself and I struggle with this one area, so I’m, I’m anxious to get your, your opinion on it because I know you’re an expert here, so we’ll be right back.

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The question I wanna talk hit talk to you about Larry, is, is, is dads, when we teach stuff like this, or we teach stuff in general, sometimes we run outta patience . We can, we just, we’re just, we’re beating our head against the wall. We feel like nothing’s, like nothing’s clicking. And I know you, you, you teach a lot in, in your show and different resources around patients.

So, you know, maybe give some guidance, some insight to the listeners out there who, who struggle with that area. You know, how do you get started? What’s one, what’s some things that it can do to start improving that area to have more patients in their life?

18:03 Larry Hagner
Thanks to the question, you know, I’ve been doing this work now for, gosh, since 2013, so almost 10 years.

And what I can tell you is, you know, I’ve, I’ve stood nose to nose, toes to toes, shoulder, shoulder with thousands of men at this point. Mm-hmm. , uh, through our mastermind program, through our, our events, through podcasting. And they were, you know, I, I know the minds and the hearts of men, and I know what they struggle with without a doubt.

I can say it now before they can. Right? Mm-hmm. . And one of the most common themes that I’ve heard over and over and over and over again, like, Hey, when I ask a man, what do you struggle when it comes to your kids? What do you struggle with most? It’s always patience. Always patience. Right. And I, I found that this was such a crucible for men that I was like, I, I took the almost 1000 episodes of podcasting that we have to date, all the books that I’ve read, everything I’ve learned in the mastermind, talking to experts, and basically came up with, um, six different skills.

That we can actually learn and utilize for patience, for actually achieving and creating more patience with our kids. And to be quite honest, it’s not just with our kids. It’s with the man that looks in the mirror at himself every day. Because truly that’s where the patient starts, right? Is with the man, right?

It doesn’t start with the, the thing that’s challenging the man. It actually starts with the man, right? Mm-hmm. . It starts with the voice between her two ears and in our heart. So let’s first talk about what patience really is. Okay? Patience is actually emotional resilience. It’s just packaged up and bottled just a little bit differently.

When we think about losing our patience with our kids, what’s really happening is, is we don’t have the skill set to be more resilient with our kids. Mm. And usually what happens is, is when we run out of patience, what really means is we’ve run out of the skill set to achieve whatever it is we’re trying to achieve.

So like for instance, if your kid is throwing an absolute tantrum right in the grocery store, and you can’t control them. No matter what you do. You’re technically, you’re not losing your patience with the kid because the kid is gonna be the kid. I mean, we can’t. Mm-hmm. kids are going to throw a tantrum.

What’s really happening in that moment is we don’t know what to do. So we get really, really upset and then we yell and we scream, and then we, we say something we don’t want to do or say something we don’t mean. We do something we don’t want to do. And then we have that, that shame and that regret and that guilt afterwards.

Like, Oh gosh, I shouldn’t have said that. Right? So I’ll give you a perfect example. So, well, first of all, let me, let me back up before I share the story. If you can create more emotional, if you can create the skill of creating more emotional resilience in your life, you will be more patient with your kids.

Mm-hmm. . Ok. Now here’s the other thing. Too many of us think that having more patience is a feeling. And here’s the other thing too. Here’s the other. If we don’t have the patience that we expect out of ourselves, we view ourselves as weak. We don’t view ourselves as a, as a, as a man. We don’t view ourselves as a strong man.

Like we, there’s a lot of stories we tell ourselves that we are, we are unfit for the job, right? You know, when we lose our patience. So there’s that going on too. So that’s one thing I want to get out there. Patience is not a feeling. It’s not, it’s a skill. It’s a skill. It’s an absolute skill. And if you don’t believe me, I’ve interviewed I think 34 Navy seals on the podcast.

One of the things that they teach a Navy SEAL through buds is physical and emotional resilience. That’s what they teach them. No SEAL really comes in with that high level of emotional resilience as they do when they graduate, right? Mm-hmm. . That’s part of the reason why out of 195 candidates and buds, 19 of them will graduate, right?

Mm-hmm. . Cause not all of them can even get through it, but those 19, that graduate learn the skill, right? Mm-hmm. . So let’s talk about really quickly. Um, but the, let me share a story. Okay. Just because I teach this stuff, that doesn’t mean I, I execute it flawlessly. I fall flat on my face, you know, some, sometimes every day, right?

Right. So my 14 year old, you know, for years he kind of had this really bad habit of leaving his stuff everywhere. Shoes, hats, laundry, trash, bowls, dishes, glasses, everything everywhere. And it would piss me off. Like, I’m like, my God. Like, pick up after yourself for the love of God. Right? Right. And I would like yell at him and it would drive me crazy.

And so now, you know, since he’s been doing that for so long, I now view him through this lens of he is the kid that leaves stuff behind Uhhuh. . Now what I can tell you, Unfortunately that label isn’t fair to him, right? It truly isn’t. Especially not anymore. He has gotten so much better with this stuff, right?

But we see what we wanna see and we perceive what we want to perceive because we label kids the way we do. So like, because I label in that way, that’s what I look for, right? So just the other day, I literally went downstairs. He had a Gatorade bottle and an empty Lunchable tray on, on the floor, and I didn’t know how long it had been there.

And the story I was telling myself, it had been left there. And I looked at him and I blew up and I was like, Dude, what is this on the ground, right? He’s like, Yeah, I, I left that. And I was like, I was like, Dude, why do you do this all the time? I was like, You, you know that this is not cool. I was like, This is our environment.

You share our environment with our, with the rest of the people in this home by leaving your trash on the floor for somebody else to either see it or pick it up is so disrespectful. And I was like, and this pisses me off. And I just yelled at him. I was like, Pick it up. And he like, literally, I saw my son go from 14 to 35 years old in an instant.

And he looked at me and he immediately acted older than me and rightfully so. He looked at me and he goes, I know you’re angry, and I know I do this every now and again, but I’ve gotten so much better at it and you don’t have to yell at me. Why do you always have to yell at me? Like if you just ask me just calmly, I’ll do it.

And then my ego fired, uh, . And I lost my patience even more because there’s that part of me and I was losing my patience. That ego part of me fired up because I’m like, Who does this kid think he is? Right? Yeah. And I fired back at him. I said, If you pick it up, I wouldn’t have to ask. And he’s like, I understand that.

He goes, But it’s just the way you treat me sometimes. And when he said, It’s just the way you treat me sometimes. I was like, I just walked away from the situation because I. I knew he was, he was still in the wrong Right. Because he shouldn’t have left his trash behind. But I also knew he was very Right.

Right. And you reach these points depending on your kids’ ages, where you, you know, you, I don’t wanna say you look at them as peers, but they teach you things. Mm-hmm. about yourself and about life. And I thought to myself, he’s absolutely right. And he has been better about picking this up and he’s gonna make mistakes.

But how the voice that I use with him and the way that I treat him is absolutely going to be the voice in his head. Mm-hmm. . And I went to him later that day and I said, I’m sorry. You know you are right. I was like, You don’t deserve to be yelled at like that. Yeah. And even though we both know that what you did was wrong, Right.

And he’s like, Yeah, it was wrong. He’s like, I should have picked it up. And I said I was wrong. By the way I spoke to you. Hmm. And I said, Listen, just like you’re trying to, you know, you’re 14 and trying to figure out how to be a 14 year old and try to figure out how to transition from eighth grade to freshman year next year, and all these things going on with the your girlfriend and dynamics with your friends.

You’re trying to figure out life. Well, I’m 46 and I’m still trying to figure out how to raise four boys. And some days I get it right. Some days I fall flat on my face and I’m sorry. Right. And today I fell on my face, you know, I said, Can we make an agreement? And he said, Yeah. I said, The agreement is this.

If I see trash going on, I’m not gonna yell at you anymore. I’ll ask and I’ll ask, I’ll ask very nicely. I will hold up my end of the deal. Right. On your end of the deal, would you mind making sure that you’re doing this more often? Absolutely. So here, that was two days ago, and you know, he need to clean his room.

The other day or yesterday they were, he’s like, Hey, my room’s clean. I went down there. It was really disastrous. He knew it was still right. And I go, and I, I looked at him and I said, Hey, Mason. I go, um, I noticed that, you know, you still have bowls of popcorn, um, on your bed, on your bed for here on your headboard.

Um, you’ve, you’ve got some Gatorade bottles on the floor and your laundry’s not folded. Would you mind doing that before, before we say that this room is clean? And he is like, Yeah, I can do that. And I go, Hey, see what I did there? And he goes, I saw what you did. Which before I’d be like, Do you think this room is clean?

Right? Are you kidding me right now? Like, that’s the way I would’ve talked to him. Right? And there, there was another thing that happened last night that I, again spoke to him very gently and I was like, Hey, just see what I did there. Right there. I’m in line with our agreement. He’s like, I did. Right. So, yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s maybe an example of being more patient.

But in that moment, my son taught me that skill that I needed to be like, Hey, when you want to yell at me, could you just ask me with a nice voice? And I was like, Yeah. Regardless of how I feel. Right. Right. Regardless of how angry I am. Right. I can still use that skill.

27:46 Chris Grainger
Absolutely. I mean, and and I’m curious too, you two words that popped out of that story that I think men in general, I, I personally do too, and I’m raising nothing but girls.

Okay. So I, I’m on the opposite side, so I have to extra be extra careful because the tone that I use, just like you, you know, it really, it, it, it can, it can paint a, a very bad picture of me in their eyes. I have to be very careful there. But the two words that jumped out, man, I’m sorry, and, and you said those words, and it’s oftentimes as men and fathers in particular is dads it, It’s hard for us to say that to our kids, but I think they need to hear it more.

So any advice on, hey, when we need to actually step up and, and use those words and, and, and, and recognize to, Hey, we’re, we don’t have this all figured out. We’re, we’re learning as we go to.

28:37 Larry Hagner
I actually think that’s one of the most powerful things. I don’t know how you were raised, but the way I was raised is, I’m mom, you’re the kid.

I’m right, you’re wrong. Mm. Like, and literally it was, it was sometimes those words and or if I would challenge my mom and be like, you know, Hey, like, why, why is this decision being made? Well, I’m the mom. You’re the kid. That’s why. Shut up. Uhhuh. . Right. And there was never, and I’m sorry, there was never, I was, I was brought up with, there was never owning any, any wrongdoings or mistakes.

And what I can tell you is that, uh, when we, I, I’m not good at a lot, Chris, I’m just not when it comes to this. Like I’m still trying to figure it out. Mm-hmm. . But there is one thing I am good at. Okay. And that is when I make a mistake, I do own it and I do apologize. Mm-hmm. And I, I think there’s a lot of power in that.

And I think when we do that, when we own it and we apologize, we actually, I never knew this when I was doing it, but I’ve noticed. My 16 year old, 14 year old, my eight year old, I think my six year, my six year old’s still kind of young. Uh, they’re like the first to usually apologize as well. Like, Hey, I’m sorry I did that.

I shouldn’t have done that. Right. You know, can you forgive me? And I think like, that’s so mature. And I’m like, Man, this is pretty awesome. Like, where do they get that from? And I don’t wanna say it’s all me. My wife does the same thing. But I think when we own something like that, or we tell our kids, I don’t have this all figured out.

Right. It, it humanly connects us as, as human beings. Like, Yeah, I’m dad and you’re kid. And you’re kid and I’m dad. But we’re all insanely flawed and imperfect and we’re gonna make mistakes. Yeah. Cause I think a lot of our kids, they put us on this pedestal. Right? Well he’s, even though he is acting the way he is, he’s still gotta be Right.

Cause he’s dad and I don’t, I don’t necessarily buy into that. Right. Cause there are certain behaviors that we have and, and do that are wrong from time to time. And we can teach that. That humility when we’re, um, when we own our mistakes. Even when we make mistakes as parents.

30:42 Chris Grainger
Right. Do do you think we’re too hard on ourselves too?

Like we, we, Yeah, it’s one thing to own it, but sometimes guys, we just think that we don’t wanna show that flaw. We don’t wanna show that weakness. Maybe, maybe they view it as weak. Is that, is that an area that you, that you think guys

30:55 Larry Hagner
really struggle with? Oh, totally. Um, it, it’s, it’s really hard for us, um, to own things because, you know, it, we think it’s a sign of weakness.

Mm-hmm. , we think it’s a sign of like, Well, if I admit this, then, you know, I’m basically telling the world, my kids, my wife, that I made this mistake and they’re gonna view me differently. And horribly. It’s actually the opposite. We actually earn more trust, respect, and credibility when we, when people know, especially people in our lives like our kids, how aware of ourselves we actually are.

We all know those people, Chris, right. In our lives where. Um, those people, they, there’s an excuse for everything, right? Mm-hmm. , even if there’s wrongdoing, it was somebody else’s fault in whatever else, and they have no ownership whatsoever. How much do we actually respect that person? Mm. How much do we actually even trust that person?

Right? How much, even like an everyday conversation, is this person even aware of this conversation and what we’re talking about? They’re not even aware of themselves. These are the things that kind of go through our mind. We don’t really say ’em out loud, but when someone fully owns what they’ve done and apologizes for it and articulates, This is what I did wrong, this is probably how I made you feel, you know, this is what I’m gonna do differently, and I’m asking for your forgiveness.

I mean, how much, how much more do we like that person? How much more do we, how much more credibility do we get? Now, there’s a limit, right? If someone, you know it, it’s kinda like goes back to. The man who beats his wife right, and then suddenly apologizes and then beats her again and then apologizes again and beats her again.

That’s different, right? This one I’m talking about is full ownership of making mistakes, but actually then doing the work and effort to pivot to Correct. Right, right, right. Man,

32:42 Chris Grainger
that’s powerful stuff right there. Larry, Let’s, let’s take, I, I wanna keep digging a little bit further now. Maybe get a, some more insight on the marriage side of this with you.

Yeah. Cause I mean, we’re trying to, to sharpen dad’s and it, it’s not just the kids, right? We gotta work on the marriage. We’ll take a quick break now. I wanna get your insight there.

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Talk to us about marriage. I know, I know you really in, in, in your book to that edge, you talked about, you know, better ways to connect with our why’s and tips that, that, that guys can really do to, to form a better union because it’s a, it is a covenant and you have to constantly be working at it. So, just wanna kind of give you an open platform here for wherever you’d like to go for, to share with our listeners.

34:05 Larry Hagner
I, I sure would. And do you mind if I just share a resource with you on patients real quick for Absolutely. Jump off that. So, um, guys, as you know, I, I, I have a course on this, I have a course on, on patients. I love your audience. Love what you’re doing here. Um, if you guys wanna go take the course on patients, um, what I’ll do is, is I’ll create a coupon code for you guys.

If you go to the datas.com/patience, type in the coupon code lion, like lion, like animal, like, like this podcast lion, right? I’ll, I’ll knock, uh, 70% off of the course. Um, I want this information out there. We sell the course for 200 bucks. Um, but, you know, we’ll knock 70% off for your audience. Uh, if you guys want access to it, um, what I can tell you, it’s a 40 minute course.

It will give you gems, it’ll give you the skills, it’ll give you six distinct skills that you can use, right, right after you’re done with the course. Uh, so if you want that, you can have it. Hey,

34:59 Chris Grainger
we’ll put that in show notes for listeners too. So you guys go there. We’re, we’ll make sure that’s all synced up for you, Larry.

And I thank you. That, that’s, that’s amazing. That’s just so

35:07 Larry Hagner
generous. Yeah, I’ve never given 70% off, but like, hey, call it a God thing. But I, I do . I, I threw the number out there. It’s out there now, so we’re just gonna do it. Um, but yeah, if you guys want that, you can have it. Uh, yeah. And marriage. And at the end of the show, I’ll give you guys, we actually have two free resources.

Totally free for marriage. Yeah. Okay. Let’s talk about marriage. Um, the number one problem, and I don’t know if you wanna go in this direction, if you wanna go in a different direction, I’m totally cool with that, you, but just as I ask fathers, what’s, what’s the one thing that just drives you crazy when it comes to your kids?

It’s always patience. Now marriage is a different story. Okay. When I say, uh, when you think of marriage, what is the number one thing you wanna improve? And Chris, what do you think it is? Uh,

35:47 Chris Grainger
communication would probably comes up pretty, pretty common with the guys I talk to.

35:51 Larry Hagner
Man, that, is it communication and, no, I didn’t pay Chris, I didn’t put anything in the chat.

He said it, communication. Now when I ask, man. Okay. When you think about, when you think about communication, um, what needs to happen? I hear two adjectives. I want more communication and I want better communication. I was gonna say more better. That’s right. ,

36:15 Chris Grainger
you’re reading my, my mind.

36:16 Larry Hagner
This is scary. Okay.

Alright. Yeah. So that’s, that’s a great, So let’s talk about more for a second. So if I ask a guy, Okay, great. So if you had more communication, what would you do with it? Mm-hmm. . And then they’re like, well, we would talk more like, what about mm-hmm. , Well, we would talk more. And I’m like, Well, what would more get you more is not measurable.

More is just more than what we have now. But more isn’t always better, right? Mm-hmm. more calories doesn’t mean better fitness , right? And you reach a point of no return too. If you’re working out and training weight, it’s like training more is, there’s a point of no return, right? Yeah. A point of no, no more roi, right?

So more is not necessarily better. And when I, when, and then you’ll get men that say, Well, I want better communication. Okay, well what does that look like? What does better communication look like? And then they’ll just be like, Well, it’s better. Like, Well, better than what? Well, better than it is today. Well, how do you measure it, right?

I don’t know. It’s just better. Like I can’t articulate it. Right. So basically this is like if you go to your doctor, right? And you get routine blood work done, and I’m your doctor, Chris and I sit down with you. I’m like, Chris, have a seat. Chris, I’m looking over your blood work here and I need you to get in better help.

Yeah. And I need you to do more for your health. Mm-hmm. , what, What questions would you have for me?

37:37 Chris Grainger
I’d just be rattling ’em off. Okay. Where do I start? What do I need to do? What’s my intake need to look like? Yeah. I mean just, yeah. Yeah.

37:43 Larry Hagner
It’s like, wait a second, do I have cancer? Do I have diabetes? Do I have high cholesterol?

Like do I have adhd? Like what, What? Right now that you can get that through blood work, but, And so you get it though. It’s really identifying what’s happening here. Right? So what I do is I actually teach, I teach nine distinct skills within communication. Right. And there’s what I like to call. The big three, right?

And the big three, meaning there’s three overarching skill sets, and then there’s three micro skill sets underneath of, of those things. So like, let, let’s, let’s talk about all three just real quickly here. Okay. So, um, what I’m talking about here is, uh, number one skill is called tactical empathy. Uh, this is a skill set that I learned from Chris Voss, but we’ve tweaked it quite a bit into marriage.

Tactical empathy is using things like emotional labels, mirroring, and your voice tone, right? Those are three very distinct skill sets. Emotional labels is be, is helping your wife identify what she’s feeling? It feels like you’re overwhelmed, right? Wow. It feels, you know, feels like you’re angry, right?

Mm-hmm. , you know, it sounds like you’re sad identifying an emotion when you do that. She feels seen, she feels heard, and she feels safe. Mirroring is another skill. Anytime you want to ask the question why you mirror somebody. I’ll give you an example. If you, if you think I’m crazy, check this out. So Chris, if I were to, let’s just say you and I were, were buddies.

Yeah. Like, we’re like, we are buddies, but we’re hanging out. Right. And like, Hey man, like, how’s everything been? And you’re like, Dude, my freaking kids are driving me crazy. Now if I were to be like, Why, why are your kids driving you crazy Uhhuh? Like, I’m genuinely curious, but me asking like, why is that driving you crazy?

How did that feel when I was like, Why are your kids driving you crazy? Uh, somewhat

39:42 Chris Grainger
Put me on the spot, you know? Yeah. You know, just not an attack, but definitely my, my, my, my guard is up a little bit, you know, my

39:51 Larry Hagner
defenses are up. Yeah, exactly. It the word, the three letter word, why will actually put someone subconsciously on the defense.

Yeah. It literally goes back to when we’re a two year old kid. Be like, Why are you doing that? Why are you crying? Right. You know, and, and you’re just like, my gosh. You know, So the word why is a, is a defensive word. Mm-hmm. , if you can take that three letter word out of your vocabulary and use mirroring. So like, if I were to say, Hey Chris, how are things going?

You’re like, Oh my gosh, man, my kids are driving me crazy. I’m like, Your kids are driving you crazy. . Now, if I were just to simply repeat those words to you in a cur, in a voice tone of curiosity, how did that land Oh yeah. Compared to why are your kids driving? You crazy? Yeah. So much

40:27 Chris Grainger
softer. I’m, I’m ready to tell you now.

Right?

40:30 Larry Hagner
You are using, mirroring is a very powerful tool with communication because what it, what it demonstrates is, I heard every word that you said, in fact, so much so I’m repeating your words. Mm-hmm. , and I’m doing it in a voice tone that I’m inviting you to tell me more. I’m not putting you on the spot, I’m inviting you, Hey man, I want to, I wanna know more about this.

It’s a very powerful tool. The other thing too is voice tone. You can change 93, everyone knows 93% of communication. Is nonverbal. Mm-hmm. . Well, 90% of conflicts happen because of voice tone. And if you don’t believe me, um, just try it. So like, for instance, even if I were to use the why question, like if I were to say, why are your kids driving you crazy?

Yeah. It lands a lot different than like, Oh man, well, like, why are they driving you crazy? Mm-hmm. , can you, I mean, you feel the difference. Just same words, right? Yep. What did that feel like? Oh, yeah. So much

41:28 Chris Grainger
softer. Like you, you genuine the second time you genuinely care. I mean, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re being empathetic.

You, you’re wanting to dig deeper. Uh, versus the first time it’s, you know, I’m on my heels, my defenses are

41:38 Larry Hagner
up. Exactly. So that under tactical empathy as it relates to communication in marriage, a lot of guys are more like more and better. Well, guess what? That’s gonna get you more communication because of the way that.

Creating the environment. We call that creating an environment of psychological safety. Mm-hmm. , where the person wants to tell you more. Right. Like, I don’t know how often, Chris, you come across to me as I guarantee people in your life have said to you, Chris, I don’t know what is about you, but I feel like I can tell you anything.

Yeah. You have you heard that? Yes, sir. Of course you have. Yeah. You, you put that off very, very well. Well, guess what? Whether you know it or not, most people don’t even realize what they’re doing, whether you know it or not. You have a natural ability to create an environment of psychological safety where people feel comfortable telling you that.

Mm-hmm. telling you anything. In fact, I would bet, or, and you’ve probably experienced this yourself. People have walked away from a conversation with you or you’ve walked away from a conversation with somebody else. Be like, I can’t believe I’ve told them that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and that’s because you create people, we experience when people create an environment of psychological safety for us.

Right. Well, guess what? We can do that in our, in our marriages. Your wife has three basic needs. She needs to feel seen, she needs to feel heard, and she needs to feel safe. Right? When you use those three, those three skill sets with your voice tone, mirroring, and labeling, those are the three needs you fulfill.

So when guys ask me, I want better and more, that’s gonna get you better and more, and that’s just three out of the nine that I teach. The, the one final thing that I’ll say is this as well. Cause I wanna go over one more skill set. Okay. Um, so we, I teach out of the big three, there’s tactical empathy, then there’s intimacy.

Intimacy is developing an environment of psychological safety, identifying core values and understanding your wife’s love language. Yeah. Curiosity and appreciation is the third out of the big three. And that’s generative questions. And that’s one I’m gonna go over creating an environment and a vision for your marriage.

Now, real quick, I wanna go over if you’re cool with it or unless I’m too long winded. No.

43:39 Chris Grainger
And you say, was it curiosity and appreciation? That’s

43:42 Larry Hagner
the third one, Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Curiosity and appreciation. So let me just talk about curiosity and appreciation so guys understand it. Curiosity and appreciation is, think of when you’re in college or when you were in school, the teachers teaching you something, or maybe like even Brazilian jujitsu or something like that.

Mm-hmm. like most, most guys can relate to. When you’re in an environment where you’re at the BJJ Dojo, you are in a mindset of curiosity and appreciation because you want to learn mm-hmm. , you wanna learn these, these moves, right? You wanna learn the rear naked choke, you’re like a kid, you know, like, just like, tell me the information.

I wanna know how to do it. It’s very different than when people go to conversations, because when people go to conversations, they actually go to most conversations with the exact opposite, which is called expectation and agenda. Perfect example is, I’m gonna go talk to my wife. I have an agenda of what I wanna talk to her about, and I have an ex expectation of how I want that thing to go.

Mm-hmm. . And if it doesn’t align, if it doesn’t go in the, in my expectations, I’m defensive and me even resentful. So like, I think one topic that most guys can relate to is, If you could get your wife to have sex, right? Mm-hmm. , so like, my agenda is to is to talk to her about having sex tonight. And my expectation is we’re gonna have sex.

And if that doesn’t happen, we usually get upset. Mm-hmm. , now we can come to conversations with what we call curiosity and appreciation. We’re, we’re now willing to learn. And the way to Do people feel that, I mean, Chris, have you ever been in a conversation with somebody and you wholeheartedly feel I’m on their agenda and they want a certain outcome with me?

I know they do. I mean, I think the easiest way to really relate to that is being in a sales situation. Yeah. I think they

45:28 Chris Grainger
just go on LinkedIn and get connected with anybody. You’ll, you’ll get, you’ll get pitched like within an hour, .

45:33 Larry Hagner
Exactly. Exactly. Now curiosity and appreciation is, I have genuine curiosity about you.

Yeah. It’s not to sell you anything, it’s to learn about you. So there’s a skill that I teach. It’s called generative questions. Okay? It’s probably one of the more powerful skills I, out of labels, mirrors and voice tone, generative questions is, these are the most, these are the four most powerful skills, generative questions.

Let’s first talk about what they are. Actually, let’s talk about what a poor question is. Poor question is, how was your day? Mm-hmm. , right? Yep. And that’s, Or your kids, How was school? Mm-hmm. . Right? So those are questions that the other person can answer with one word, and they don’t even have to think about it.

Fine. Yeah. fine. Good, busy. Yep. They create no depth. Yep. They create no psychological safety. They don’t, The other person doesn’t even know if she really truly care. Right. They’re just like, I get asked this question every day. Right. A generative question is a question where the person has to generate ideas.

They have to generate reflection. They have to generate maybe a vision if it’s a future based generative question. Right. What it does is it creates connection, intimacy, and better communication. So I’ll give you an example. Instead of asking my wife, How was your day? I might be like, What was the best part of your day today?

Yeah. Or what, what was a high point moment for you today that made you smile? What was a, what was a part of your day that made you laugh? What was a part of, as you reflect upon your day, what was something that brought you joy? Mm-hmm. . Now she can’t answer, find good, busy, or crazy or overwhelmed. Right. She has to be like, I talked to my mom today.

Mm-hmm. and I haven’t talked to my mom in two weeks. It was so good to catch up with her. Oh, that’s, yeah. You of, of course that, that brought you so much joy. Tell me more about that now what, what I just did there is I also weaved in a label. Yeah, of course. That brought you so much joy. Tell me more about that.

Yeah. And I’m inviting her to tell me more. So, generative questions are, can be three different things. The best of the past, the best of the future. I’m sorry. Best of the past. Best of the present. Best of the future. Okay. And you can always do either one. So like for instance, you can say, um, what was the best part of your day today?

Right. That is, um, Oh my God, it’s so funny. As I’m sitting here taking you through this, my wife over text message just mirrored me. It’s so funny. I’ll, I’ll get that to That’s awesome. Yeah. Um, because she knows this stuff. But you can also simply, so the best of the past would be like, what was the best part of your day today?

Right? Right. Um, what’s a feeling that you have right now that’s bringing you joy? That’s, that’s a, that’s a best part of the present. As you think about tomorrow, what’s, what are you most excited about? Yeah. That’s the best of, of the future. So you can tweak these either way. And what those do is they cr like I said, when the person has to story tell Yeah.

You know, and they have to create a vision or tell you something like that. And you can also do this with challenges. What was something that challenged you today? What was something that was really hard for you today? Yeah. You know, you’re inviting that person into their world and they have to story tell, and that’s when people feel super connected.

So if you can understand the skill of generative questions and asking your wife better questions, that one skill set in of itself will get you more and better. Now, I always encourage guys, learn the other eight. Yeah. But that’s a great start. Right?

49:00 Chris Grainger
Do they, do they always typically start, I noticed you shifted from like, versus how is your day to, you know, a lot of what you know, but that really drives the question better.

So is it more like a what or when, like opening Absolutely. To those questions. Is that

49:14 Larry Hagner
part of the strategy? It’s always an open ended question. Right. And I usually also like to tie it to something that’s emotional. Right. Something that they have to feel right. Gotcha. Along with it. Um, I don’t, I, I, I try to stay away from why.

Right. So like, I don’t say, you know, Why was that meaningful? Oh, tell me more about that. Okay. Cause, Cause again, even though you use why as a genuine word, tell me you’re gonna get the same, but the person’s gonna feel better giving you the information. Right. If it’s an invite versus a why. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

49:47 Chris Grainger
no doubt. So kind of just steer clear of that, but just, just digging and have that, I love how you call it curiosity, cuz if you’re naturally curious, that’s why I like podcasting too, cuz I, I have a curious personality, but if you show that, it just, to me it just opens up the floodgates for communication to occur.

50:04 Larry Hagner
That totally does. That’s awesome.

50:06 Chris Grainger
That’s awesome. Now you mentioned there was another resource, cause I don’t want, I don’t wanna leave the, the mayors thing that shit you had for, for guys that, that want to improve their communication in marriages. Do you want to mention that?

50:17 Larry Hagner
Absolutely. So I’ve got two free resources for men.

One is an email series and the other one’s actually video. So let me take, um, the video training first. Cause I just talked about generative questions, so it’d probably be just super appropriate just to point guys in the direction of that. Okay, So I have, It’s totally free. There’s no catch. I don’t want your credit card.

I’m like, literally like, out of these nine skill sets, generative questions is one of like the lowest, most powerful hanging fruit skill sets that you can use. Um, again, I I invite you not to just lean on that cause there’s more to it. Cause you’ve, if you’re not responding in the best way to the answers to these questions or labeling or mirroring or that kind of thing, then the questions become a RapidFire interview.

Right? You know, and that’s not effective either, right? But if you go to the data edge.com/ 25 questions, that’s two, five questions. It’s totally free. Put, put in your name and email and then you’ll have access to, um, just a, a quick, uh, video training on the psychology behind generative questions. Why they create intimacy.

Why they create connection, why you’re gonna have better conversations, why you’ll actually probably have more passionate sex just cuz you’re just doing it because of, because of the intimacy and the safety and, and the how it elevates the entire relationship. Plus, I give you a PDF with 25 generative questions that you can use immediately.

So that’s a free resource. The other free resource is what I call 21 Days to an Extraordinary Marriage. Okay? That one is very easy as well, putting, it’s on our homepage, the data edge.com. You’ll see right at the top all that is is it’s an email series. It’s 15 emails over 21 days. And what it, what it does is it, it, I teach you three different skill sets and then three very distinct challenges for you to go out and do.

And they’re very simple. They’re not complex, but I basically teach you the skill set over email. And then I’m like, Okay, here’s how you then go do this. Right? One of ’em is taking and one of ’em is actually generative questions. Taking your wife on a date night and giving you several different questions that you can ask her on that date night.

And I have guys reply to that email all the time. Like, Hey, here’s your challenge for the week. Take your wife on a date night. Here’s how the conversation can, can go utilize, you know, five to seven of these 25 generative questions and let me know how the date goes. And Chris, I get replies from guys, man, every day.

Oh my gosh. I, I have guys tell me that they, their wives cry because of these questions. And they’re nothing crazy. They, the questions that they ask, but they tap in to this emotional part of their wife. Like, one of the questions was, tell me, tell me one of your most favorite childhood memories with your mom or your dad, and tell me why it was so meaningful for you.

Yeah. And when women have to go back to their childhood and be like, Oh my gosh, there was this one. And it brings them kind of to their emotional needs. Think about the connection that’s happening to their husband. Yeah. With their husband in that moment. Yeah. And yeah, so things like that so they can get that free resource as well.

Man, that is awesome

53:14 Chris Grainger
guys. You know, make sure go to the show notes. This is gonna be a show note heavy episode. That’s cool though. Go to show notes cuz we’ll have the links there for all Larry’s resources cuz it sounds like, you know, you guys need to jump on this email train right now and go ahead and get that stuff into your inbox cuz there’s just too much darkness coming in there inbox.

He’s trying to give you some light, so jump all over it. So, you know, last thing I like to do, Larry with, with everybody, if you don’t mind, It’s a quick lightning round. Uh, I got a, I got a few questions and just lets our listeners know a little bit more about you and, uh, if you’re willing to jump in, we call it feeding time, like the line within us.

Let’s do it, man. All right brother. So what’s your favorite thing about Guy

53:51 Larry Hagner
Man? Um, yeah, if I, if I could just answer that super quick, it would be, um, Just his grace and forgiveness, uh, to love, love it, love somebody like me who’s so flawed and just welcomes me back into his, I mean, call it life or call it presence, you know, Even after I was like the prodigal son spiritually for so long.

So just his grace.

54:15 Chris Grainger
Yeah. N next question. What are you currently struggling with right now? Um,

54:22 Larry Hagner
what? I’m . Oh, this is gonna sound so, so crazy, but here it is. So I’ve been so busy. I was telling you about crazy deadlines and my brain is mush. You know, April was crazy. I did a bodybuilding show with my 14 year old.

I went right from that deadline to writing 35,000 words in my new book coming out in September. I went from that to posting a retreat for some of our mastermind guys in Colorado, and now we’re going on a podcast blitz over the next 90 days. What I can tell you is my wife and my wife and I are fully aware of.

We don’t have, um, the quality time that we used to because I’ve been so busy. Right. So, but we’re, we’re very aware of it. So we’re like, okay, we’re planning out dates for the next 90 days, like, you know, our weekly day because we are, we are not missing that. We’re not missing this no matter how busy we get, no matter how crazy it is raising four boys, we are gonna do this.

55:18 Chris Grainger
Nice. Nice. Well, best of luck with that. Nice. Next question. What are you most afraid of, Larry?

55:27 Larry Hagner
Uh, I would say getting to my life and regretting something. Okay. Yeah. Would you,

55:33 Chris Grainger
Yeah. What’d you spend too much time doing? Last year

55:40 Larry Hagner
I was spending way too much time doing the things in data edge that I shouldn’t have been doing. And I, I, I needed to either do it, delegate it, or delete it.

55:50 Chris Grainger
Got it. Three more to go, man. Then we’re done. So what do you wish you had, you would have learned sooner

55:55 Larry Hagner
about God? I wish I would’ve learned how, I wish I would’ve learned that I was worthy of a better relationship with him.

Awesome. Awesome.

56:06 Chris Grainger
What’s a new habit you’re gonna try to create

56:10 Larry Hagner
or maybe that you are creating? Yeah. Um, so I’m staring right now at three different books that I have. So one is Living Faith, where I have a passage of the day, Daily Light for Men, um, Daily Stoic. And then I just picked up this book called The Power of Positive Parenting.

And what I do is, is I just spend, um, about one minute in Living Faith, another minute in daily light, one minute with Stoic. So that’s like three to four minutes right there. And then I spend 10 minutes reading positive parenting and then , I got like a arsenal. Um, I journal about it. So it’s, it’s helped me practice mindfulness and get my day off on a good start.

That’s

56:48 Chris Grainger
great. That’s great. That’s a, that’s a great habit right there. It sounds like you got like the miracle morning type strategy going on over there, man. Yeah, just a little. It’s awesome. Awesome. Now last question here in, in feeding time, Larry, what’s one thing you hope the guys that they’re listening to, Lions, what do you hope they remember from this conversation today?

57:05 Larry Hagner
What I hope that men learn is, is give themselves some grace. So if you’re not, if you’re not patient with your kids, like, listen, it’s not your fault. This is a, it’s a skill. Don’t come down on yourself because you think you’re less, less of a man if you’ve lost your patience with your kids. It’s a skill.

It’s kind of like going out and learning, like we said, Brazilian jujitsu, if you go up against a black belt and you’ve never done Brazilian jujitsu and you come down on yourself being like, I should have beat ’em, No, you shouldn’t have, cuz you didn’t train for it. Same thing with these skills, same thing with your wife and what we talked about today with the big three and, and the four skill sets went over.

If you haven’t been doing these things, that’s. Right. But what I will tell you, it is your responsibility. Now that you know that these are skills, go out and learn them, right? Mm-hmm. . So if, if, give yourself some grace for anything in the past, but also be willing to to go learn. Set the ego aside, know that these are skills and go learn them.

Absolutely.

58:00 Chris Grainger
Well, there, this has been great. Anything else you’d like to share with our listeners, cuz we’ll make sure we, we sync up all the way to connect with you and what you’re doing, But just any

58:07 Larry Hagner
final thoughts? No, I think that’s it, my friend.

58:11 Chris Grainger
All right. Well, it’s been an absolute blessing. Thank you so much for joining us here in line within us.

Larry. Thanks brother.

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All right guys, That was a powerful conversation with Larry. I tell you what, he is doing some amazing things at the dead edge and he just dropped so much knowledge on us that’s gonna help us all, you know, sharpen up those areas of our life to that we wanna be a better dads, but you know, it’s not just being a better dad, it’s being a better husband too.

So he, I just can’t thank him enough. It was really cool that we’re able to connect, you know, his podcast definitely serves so many people. The, the, the things that he’s providing. Look, I had no idea he was gonna provide us that, that huge discount on that patients course. I’m gonna go take that course. I need it myself.

I mean, I’m sure if my wife’s listening to this right now, she’ll be like, Yeah, you need to take that course. So we’ll jump all over that. So guys, I pray that this conversation brought you value. That’s, that is, that is helping you. That did it. It gives you some encouragement and some, some wisdom, some insight, uh, to, to help you in your walk.

So the question of the week, this week, how can patients create powerful dads? So think about that. You know, how can patients create powerful dads? You know, Larry just went through a ton for us right there on how, on how to answer that. You need answers for yourself. Okay? Now guys, go out there, give if, if you like the line within us, give us a re a rating interview.

That that is one thing that we really need. It helps really promote the podcast. It helps getting into the ears of the people we need to get in, in, in front of, and share it. You know, if you’re at church on a, for your Sunday school or just in, in a small group, share the line within us. Just bring it up.

Bring up the conversation. Let us enter that. You know what, If you want me to, to help have a conversation, connect me with your pastor, cuz I’d love to just be able to share our resources with the pastors. Cuz you know what I, I’d love for the line within this Bible study to be taught in some of these churches.

Cause it’s going open up conversations that guys need to be having. Okay? So go to the line within, do us check out our resources again. We have the, we have the courses available now, the online courses, we had the bible study, we had the swag, you know, we have all sorts. The podcast, the, uh, the blogs out there.

We’re constantly writing, we’re constantly trying new things. There’s a 10 scripture, uh, uh, download right there where you can get the 10 powerful scriptures to fight like a lion. So you want to get all these resources. Some of these are free. All you have to do is just jump on and take advantage of it.

Guys, it’s right there out in front of you. So we’re working hard week in and week out. Come back on on Fun Friday and we’re gonna give you some, some, some really good tips to end your week, guys. This type of conversation, this is what it’s all about. It’s bringing you value to help you. Be the Christian leader.

You’re predestined be. So again, I pray this. I pray this was a good one for you guys. Thank you so much for listening to the line within us. Now, get your butt out there and unleash the lion within.