Stereo Mix 2

The podcast "Uncomfortable" was founded by a couple and their children. They discuss topics that are important to them and share their experiences of stepping out of their comfort zones to follow their faith. They believe that being uncomfortable is necessary for personal growth and they want to encourage others to embrace discomfort as well. They also talk about the challenges of living a moral life in a world that often prioritizes comfort and blame. The couple's parenting style has evolved over time, becoming more supportive and guiding. Their oldest child acknowledges their growth and appreciates the values they instilled in her. Welcome to Uncomfortable The Podcast Episode 1. We tried Episode 0, but we'll hold that for later. I have my beautiful wife Allison, my oldest daughter Hope, second oldest child Faith, third oldest and oldest boy, young man Adonis Bonner II. Welcome everybody. I will add that my name is Hope Alexander, a married woman. Congratulations. Do the hand clap again. Last night we talked about things that we really, we tried it out and we tried to think about what's something that's tugging on our heart to want to express or talk about topics that we, again, like want to just bring to attention or just talk about, but we kind of had so many that we needed to try to focus on one. How about we start about, you explain to us what Uncomfortable The Podcast is to you and where it was founded. Claps again. Yay. I think Uncomfortable came to my mind or my heart probably within the last few years, but the Lord put it on my heart to do something. I just didn't know what. He had put different books, people, items in my life to trying to push me to get into doing whatever ministry he has planned for our family. But, of course, I was comfortable in my own life, taking care of my family and focusing on our children as our ministry because we have so many being a family of 10. And then also just I was comfortable being in control and I realized that for myself that was where the name Uncomfortable came from is also because it's uncomfortable for me to just let go and let God do everything because one of my biggest problems or I should say sin is pride. I'm a control freak. I love to be able to be in control of situations. I'd like to call you a problem solver, not a control freak. I'm a problem solver, but I think we all have gifts from God and each and every one of us are different and we have different directions or things that God has planted inside of us to do. And mine, he just he waited patiently for me to get started on it, you know. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Uncomfortable, the podcast, episode 2 point whatever, because we've tried this a couple of times, but new at this and we're going to just plug away as we go. I have my beautiful wife with us here today, Allison, my oldest daughter, Hope Alexander, my second oldest princess, Faith Bonner, and my oldest boy, third oldest child, Adonis Bonner II, a.k.a. Bubba. What do we want to talk about? I think it'd be great for you to explain to us what the Uncomfortable podcast vision is or where it was developed. I think Uncomfortable came to my heart years ago, and it's been ever since I can remember that I changed my life and decided to walk differently and try my best to be a good man, a good husband, a good father. I think that the hardest thing we can do in this world is be a good person, whatever that is. Try to follow Jesus as a moral compass. And we're shooting for perfection, but it will never happen. And we are tested constantly out in the world. And when we're walking different and having a different mindset, we are uncomfortable when we go out there. So often, I thought to myself multiple times, when we go to church or when we see new believers that give their life to Christ at church or whatever situation they have or the opportunity that they have, they're prayed for and told how everything's going to be great and they're born again. It's a new life. But I feel like sometimes we focus on the great part, which is awesome. And it is the end goal to be able to be at the right foot of Jesus when our time is done here. But the reality of it is once we walk out those church doors and once we go out in the world, it's going to get harder. And the devil's going to hit you even harder because now you're dangerous, because you are trying to live and going to live a better life. And he's going to come at you and attack you to try his best to push you back to your old ways where you were comfortable. And we have to walk amongst everyone and everything that we do in a new way, which can be uncomfortable. And I think that I've shared this with numerous people now. And when I share that with them, they kind of go, I don't understand what you mean. God's great and everything's good. Absolutely, it is. But you still have a lot of things you got to work out in your life and it gets tough. And I want people to understand that it took me a long time to get where I'm at right now to be comfortable enough, being uncomfortable, allowing God to take full control. Because that was my biggest hindrance, was wanting to be in control, wanting to know everything that's going to happen, how it's going to go, trying to make sure that everything was going to work out to the best of my ability. And realizing that all I was doing was sitting in my rocking chair and making things more difficult on myself by trying to force things, try to control things, try to even. I remember one of my spiritual leaders, mother's, Lena, she told me, Adonis, the sooner you quit trying to figure out God and just let him do his work, the better off you'll be. And because, man, I spent so much time sitting there trying to, what are you trying to do, God? What are we doing in this? Why are you doing this? Instead of just waiting for it to unfold and saying, aha, I get it. How often do we sit and go through situations where we're like, why is this happening to me? Why is this? Why, why, why, why, why, why, God? Instead of, okay, God, what are you trying to teach me? What are you trying to teach me in this situation instead of why? The why will come once you figure that out. And you won't figure it out until it happens. And you're going to look back and be like, holy cow, I could have avoided all of this stress and all of this uncomfort if I would have just listened to him and let him guide me in this. And since I started doing that here again more in the last month, he has just pushed and pushed and pushed and opened doorways and sent random messengers of the Lord to give me the tools I need, give me the information, setting people that can help me and lead and guide me in doing this new walk of step or face that we're doing. And it's still uncomfortable. Uncomfortable comes in many shapes and forms, but we have to start getting comfortable being uncomfortable so we can grow. Because if you're not uncomfortable in things that you're doing, then you're not growing. You're just staying stagnant. Because when you're in the comfort zone, you're just cruising by. And that's just where I'm at with it right now. There's plenty of more, but it'll kind of unfold as we start talking about things, different situations. It's not just going to be about. It will always be based on the Lord and leading, guiding the direction of whatever we're talking about. But there are tons of different situations, subjects that we're going to talk about. Could be sports. Could be work. It could be random people not doing their job at Slotsky's. I don't know. It's funny, but it's not. It's unfortunate that we're in a place and time where we don't even hold ourselves to a high standard and to provide good quality attitude and service. Be a good person. Do unto others as you want done to you. It's that simple. I can't even. We are in such a world right now, or I should say in our country just in general, that everywhere you go, everybody owes me. And I don't owe anybody anything. And anything that goes wrong in my life is somebody else's fault. So we want our cake and eat it. And plus, on top of that, we want to be comfortable sitting on our own sin. And yet still blame everybody for our problems when you're the one that's making all the choices. Those are the kind of things that just really get at me and really dig at my mindset. And I don't know what the right word is for it right now. I'm just trying to think of the proper terms of use so that way I am able to reach people so they can understand what I'm trying to get at. Because I could go 15 different directions just trying to get to the same point. And I'm trying to learn myself to not do that as well, as my wife has told me to. Fair enough. So I will ask you, as my oldest children and my wife, because you have all known me the longest out of our family. Of course, hope the most because we kind of grew up together. I don't even necessarily think that we were young kids having a kid and we were blessed. I call you my golden. I was Papa's age. I was 16 when I met your dad. Yeah, and I always say that you're a golden practice child because you still turned out awesome. And I'm thankful for that. But we still did our best with what we knew how to give you the best life and love on you the way you are and lead and guide you to be the best you could be. And what have you seen in the changes in our family in the last, I don't know, year or two, even just in this recent time? I think, and we had this conversation about a year ago, right? You asked me, particularly, I feel like, Mom, you've always been the same. I feel like Dad... I'm his sugar coater. She is the sugar coater and the person that you can, she'll always... Tell you what you want to hear. Yeah, exactly. Always make you feel better because she's going to support you, even though Dad supports you, but he's going to support you... And guide you a little bit better. And tell you how it is and make sure you know right from wrong. But I don't even like using the word softer, but I think that you've matured as a parent. I think you were very hard and, I don't know, it wasn't bad. I do want to say, thinking about where my parents were at, you guys did do a really good job. Because even though I consider you guys like my friends, like I really can come to you for anything, you are my friends. You guys raised me and you instilled a lot of great things in me that have made me the person I am today and a successful individual at a young age. So you guys didn't do anything wrong. But seeing how you parent me versus my siblings, it's a huge difference. But you guys are different now than you were 25 years ago. You've matured as adults. You've learned more. You've gotten more patient. More understanding. More grace. And what I say by that is, you know, I remember you guys would go through my power school and I'd have every single assignment turn in. I'd get my phone taken away. Softball was on the line. It was, you are getting straight A's and you better have no missing assignments. Now if my siblings, some of my siblings have that, it's, okay, what's going on? Why are these missing? I didn't have that option. It was, you're going to do this. But I will say that a positive from that is like, I'm 25 and I've decided I'm going to do what I said I was going to do when I was a little girl. And I kept putting it back, pushing it back, pushing it back. And it's like, no, I got to do this. Because there is no other option. My parents haven't still let me. Is that a good answer? I think so. And I would like to say it from a parent's perspective. When you become a parent, you know, your dad and I were very young when we had you. So my mindset was to break a generational curse and make sure that we kept you protected. And I would never say that having you at a young age was a mistake. But there were a lot of challenges with having you at such a young age. So my goal was to get you past being a teenager. And your dad and I are very fortunate to still be together because a lot of people our age now that were together when we first met each other are not together. So in my mindset, I thought, hey, if we could just guide her, protect her, prevent her from anything out there that she would go to college, she would be successful, she'd get married, have children. Your dad and I kind of did it backwards. And we're very lucky that we're still together because a lot of people our age and where we were in the same situation are not there. So that was kind of my mindset. I wanted to protect you from everything and make sure that you did everything, quote unquote, the right way, even though there's really no right way. And what about you, Faith? I think for me, especially being so far away from home, I get to kind of really see the differences much greater, I guess. Just because I see you within only a few months' span of time, I guess. So I think for me, coming back home compared to when the last time I came home, which was around Christmas break, I'm not saying our house has ever been angry and just negativity-filled, but it just became much more peaceful. I feel like we're just much more calm as human beings. We're much more graceful towards one another. We're much more willing to sit there and listen to one another. I'm kind of bouncing off of what Hope said as well because obviously her childhood was so different than mine because we're six years apart. And I was a soft kid that couldn't handle being yelled at. She still can't. You can't really take what I have to say into account. But I just feel like we've just, especially you and Dad, obviously Mom, like we said, has always been the sugar-coater. You've always been the more hardcore one on us. And I'm not complaining. That's me, who I am today, along with Hope, who I am, Bubba. But just seeing the difference in your, obviously you've always loved God, but your obedience towards Him. It's been a complete night and change difference. And the house, just seeing how much more the boys are, I wouldn't say confident, because they weren't confident before, but much more open, if that makes sense. Much more open to be like, hey, this happened about God, can we talk about this? You know what I mean? In any other type of situation, it's just more peaceful. That's all I can really explain it as. I want to add one small thing. Is that okay? I think I can answer this question better. I feel like I've been through the good, bad, ugly, beautiful with you guys. And I think of times in our lives that haven't been so good. And to see you guys evolve as parents and individuals, and your relationship gets stronger. You guys have built a very good foundation for our family. You've built us up. And you've been a good example for all of us. You can start anywhere. It doesn't matter where you start. It's how you finish and what you're going to do along that journey. And there's been so much growth. How about you, Bubba? You know, growing up, my dad and I, you know, I was a firstborn son. I've always been a mama's boy. My dad's always been my best friend. But with that, being the oldest boy, my dad's always been really tough on me. And throughout probably the last two, three years, ever since I've been in high school, I've seen my dad not necessarily become soft on my little brothers. But he's definitely been more open-ended. It was always like, you know, I didn't really get a say in what happened. It was always what he wanted. That's still the case. You know, but he always told me it's because he saw something different in me. And I'm just different than my brothers. And the thing that I've always seen with my dad in the last year, you know, is he started talking about opening up, you know, ministry and the podcast. He's been very more open-ended to having conversations. And he's definitely helped me a lot because I can come to him a lot more than I thought I could have. You know, just from being able to talk to him, even though I rarely get to because I'm always super busy or I'm doing something. And same thing with my mom. You know, growing up, I was a mama's boy. I always wanted my mom. And same thing with her is, you know, they become more open-ended with all of us. And they kind of like, not necessarily don't take us serious, but they're willing to listen more than they were when we were younger. They become way more patient with all of us. And I feel like all three of us older ones kind of helped with that a little bit. For sure. And what have we learned from you guys? We learned how to get to be better, or I wouldn't necessarily say better, but we learned from what you guys have told us. Go ahead. I would just like to also add off of basically what all of us said. If you know our dad, he's a very like, I told you so person without saying I told you so. He always is right. He's always right. So when we're saying... When has he ever been wrong? Yeah, he's never been wrong. He's more open. We're not saying he wasn't open beforehand, but I feel like you're more willing... Not willing, I don't know how to explain it. More, I guess, open. You're more open to listen to other people's opinions and validate it better. Does that make sense? Because like still, there's never been a time you've been wrong. There really hasn't. But you're still more willing to look at other perspectives now. Does that make sense? Yeah, I get that. I was sitting here listening to this and it was funny because we were at a wrestling tournament and one of the OG referees came up. We were just sitting here and Adonis was actually coaching his little brothers and he came up and he said, hey, I remember when you were out here yelling at him all this time when he was that age. And I'm like, man, I was not that bad. I was not that hard on Bubba. All of my children, I don't think that... I was raised always wanting validation. I don't know how to put this. You feel like... I've got a lot to say and I'm trying to figure out how to say it in a short amount of time. You've got this. Everything we just discussed about all the different characteristics that all of you have spoken about me are reasons why I am the way I am. I believe that this world needs fathers. I'm going to get choked up. Because I see kids hurting because they don't have fathers. Myself included. I had a great stepdad. He taught me how to work. Worked real hard. Hard working man. But I didn't get the... the other part of it. Because there's a lot more to being a father than making a baby or working to support one and not being there. It's an extremely important job. And I'm thankful to be able to do it. Because I could have been in way many other places with the life I used to live. And I'm very thankful for that. I was very hard on you guys because I look back on my life and realize the things that I did have and could have achieved, I was a waste of potential in school and doing the things I had. But at the same point, that wasn't my walk. It's not how I was supposed to be. I'm right where I'm supposed to be. Right now, at this day, 22 minutes into this podcast, because of the life that I walked. I work really hard because I want to make sure that you all know that you are great. And I push you to be great. Because if we as parents don't expect that of you, you will never know how great you really are. Because as kids, all you want to do is make your parents proud. You know? And unfortunately, a lot of times, you know, man, I just keep on going back. That's another reason why I did this podcast. I am tired of kids being without fathers. And I'm tired of men being grown boys. It bothers me a lot. And it makes me angry to where it's time that we make a stand and allow men to be men again. Allow fathers to be fathers. And allow children to have a strong male figure in their life. Because I really firmly believe that is the downfall of this country. And this generation of soft, victim, self-victimizing, weak, lazy, excuse-making people. And if we don't do something about it, I'm not worried about you all. I know you're going to be okay because it was hard on you. I'm worried about baby Ty and baby Ty's babies. 20, 30 years from now, 40 years from now, when I'm probably pushing babies. You know? What's going to happen? And it's not just about you all. What about all the people you're going to have to deal with? We can't even go to a fast food restaurant now with getting our order right. And it doesn't matter if we went back there and held their hand. They don't even know how to give you change. Nope. What were you going to say? I want to spin off the fatherless children, or just in general. I fully support what you say, and I agree with you. Because throughout our entire lives of parenting our children, I know without a shadow of a doubt, I could have never done it alone. I could never imagine being a single mom. And this is not any disrespect to any moms that are doing both jobs. But as my boys have grown up, I've known that I could teach in love and show my unconditional love towards them, but I could never show them how to be a man. I could tell them things, but I can't physically show them. Whereas, like with my daughters, I could show them how to be women, but they still need the father figure to be in their lives as well. And I feel that having a two-parent household, which is man and woman, is so important to raise a successful home. And success isn't just about money. It's about being good people. So I agree with you on that, and I just wanted to spin off of that as well. I think that going back to all these, I want to go back to where I feel bad, because gosh darn, I wasn't trying to be hard on you guys, but I would always tell you, all of you, I know you can, you know, I see these things where it's like... We're not hurting because you were hard on us. No, we're perfectly fine. When I mean you were hard on me, it wasn't necessarily you were trying to like break me or anything. You just saw something different in all of us. And that's the thing, it's like you said you seek validation from your father. I used to think that same thing, but I realized I didn't really have to, because even though you may have been hard on me, there was never a day that I didn't hear, let's go champ, when I'm doing when you're being hard on me, or you're proud of me, or champ champ, or whatever, you know? And with you saying, when we said you're hard on us, we're grateful that you were hard on us. And it's not necessarily that we're being victims or anything. We're happy you did that. No, don't say that, because I never raised you guys to be victims. And I don't think that you're saying that to victimize yourself. But I think that... Here we go, podcast, here it comes. Yeah. You know, I think that... You know what? I'm going to be honest with you. Right now, I'm being overwhelmed and I can't even talk. I let you all talk about me, now I can't even share what I meant by all the things that I did. Go ahead, go ahead. I think going off of what Adonis said as well, along with Hope, although you were hard on us, you knew the limits that each one of us had. Because you had to be hard on me on a specific level compared to how hard you would have to be on Adonis or Hope. And you know, you being hard on us made us how successful we are today. Okay. Hope would not have her own business. She wouldn't be successful. She wouldn't have her own baby. She wouldn't be who she is. I wouldn't be in school across the country. Adonis wouldn't be a Fargo national champion. And the list can go on and on with all the boys because although you were hard on us, if it wasn't for you being hard on us, we would not have even known that any of those things were possible. I think that, you know, my walk and where I was at before, I'm going to tell you where I am with it and what I believe. When you all were younger, first and foremost, there's three things that really all of you said right now that really got me, like, hit my point. So I'm thankful that you all are here right now because this is really what this podcast is going to be about right now. One, when we are parents, we do not teach from our accomplishments. We teach from our failures. So the reason why it was hard on all of you is because I failed time and time again I was a waste of potential. I could have done plenty of other things, but I didn't have someone like me to tell me you can do anything. You are the greatest. You're a champion. You're a winner. You're beautiful. You're strong. You're a leader. All these things, we speak greatness into you. And I look back on those memories I see on social media and things like that. And I realize, you're going to be a champion. You are a champion. Hope, you're going to do this. You're going to be great. When we sat in the truck that night and I told you, I work and you set the example and we made a deal and you signed that little piece of paper and we made a contract that you were going to go to college and be the first person to graduate to be an example for your siblings. And we stuck to that because I wanted to break those barriers. I would tell you guys time and time again, my life was hard. I didn't have someone like myself to tell me all these things. I had great people. I was surrounded by a lot of good people that loved me and loved great and all of that. But I also made a lot of poor choices on my own that made my life harder. And I have seen, talked to, been around, met a lot of faces, different places and I can tell you the world is a bad place. And sometimes when I tell you guys that I'm hard on you because the world isn't going to be any softer. And I wanted to make sure that you were walking out prepared. The same as what I was talking about when people give their life to Christ. When they change their life, you're going to go out and that world's going to get harder and meaner and tougher on you. No, the world don't care where you are, what you're doing, how much you're loved by your family is just the way it's set up. You know? And another thing, as far as being a father, I feel that it's very important because our job as fathers is to show our daughters what they should expect in a man. And as a father of sons, we are supposed to teach our sons how to be the man that we want for our daughters. And I do my best and I failed time and time again. I was not. I always loved very hard. I did the right thing. I took care of my responsibilities and took care of my family. But I didn't make all the best choices when we were younger. And I say this over and over and over again, my wife's forgiveness, her gift of forgiveness is what has held our family together. And I don't take that lightly. And I'm thankful for Jesus Christ because him dying and raising from the grave today on Easter gave me second chance to be the man that I am now and the father that I am. And that's why I am so critical at times and so hard on you guys because I have that second chance and I don't want to waste it. And I'm thankful for it. And, you know, that's partially what I want to start encouraging other people to do. So often we see young families, young children again, without a structure of just the common core of a family, a mom, a dad to teach them these things. How often do we see young boys taking care of their mom because she says she don't need nobody to take care of her. Her baby will. That's not how it's supposed to be. You know, it's not supposed to be that way. Who's going to teach them how to be a man and a husband to his wife? Or vice versa. Even sometimes a daughter's got to step up because some way, shape or form, you know, this society has made it to where the dads seem like they're they're unneeded. We are made and we are made to take care of our families. That's what we're supposed to do. Man, I just don't know. I could go on and on about this stuff because I'm really passionate about it. And it's really been bugging me lately to see where we're at and seeing young men struggle because they don't know how to deal with this stuff. Yeah. And they don't know how to deal with these things that are going on in the world right now because it's darn near they made it darn near impossible for you to be a masculine, strong male figure in a in a household or in any type of leadership position, i.e. sports. Oh, he's too hard on me when they coach. He makes us run around too much. Listen, look, man, you signed up for this. Let the man or woman do their job. You know? Push you to be great. It's our job as leaders to push young adults and young people to be great in anything they do. And holding them accountable as well. Absolutely. So, I mean, I'm sorry to go on a little tangent there, but, you know, all of you hit me with all the different reasons. Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say, I don't think that you were hard on us. I think you set very high expectations for us. I was thinking about it. I don't want to say that you were hard on us. You set high expectations so high that whatever we do, we can always do better because there's always more. You'll always, you two will always be proud of us that there's always something else we can do. You can always take that next step to level up. 100%. And I just want to reiterate, you weren't hard on us. You set high expectations, but along the way, you believed in us. You can do it. Don't give up. Yeah, there's never a day that you didn't tell me you believed in me. Or any of us. And you let us know that anything's possible. Nothing can stop you. Nothing's impossible. Everything can be done. If you put your mind to it, it can be done. I also want to touch on the wasted potential. Everything's full circle because to hear you say that you felt like you were wasted potential when you said that, I remember sitting in a Shopko parking lot and my dad sat there with me. How old was I? Do you remember? Probably eight, six, six, eight. I know Faith was just a baby still. And you looked at me and you said, you can be anything you want to be, but don't ever be wasted potential. And I hold on to that. I tell people, that I tell my lessons, that I've told my husband, that I've told my friends that you can do it. Don't be wasted potential. So to hear that little girl didn't realize that you were feeling like you were because you're not. And just to hear that come full circle, just know it still pushes me to keep going. I'm good with that. And I think that, you know, that's why I work harder because I realized it. And you know, that's the other thing too. So often we hear now, there ain't a time that I don't accept responsibility for everything that I have struggled with in my life, no matter if I was in trouble when I was a youth or when I made poor decisions in business or when I failed at anything. You know, so often we see people out here, oh, it's always somebody else's fault. There has never been a time in my upbringing where I blame my parents for what I did. I chose to do it. And that's the problem with most people nowadays. That's another thing. It's always somebody else's fault. It's always somebody else's problem. No, I accept. And the sooner that people can start accepting responsibility for their actions or, now don't get me wrong, stuff happens and sometimes people get hit with situations that maybe they aren't and it isn't their fault. I understand that. But as far as my life where I'm at, the struggles I went through and the things that I did, are my fault, nobody else's. I chose to do it because regardless of the situation we go through, our upbringing or what we have dealt with, it's still our choice to either say, you know what, I can either use this as a crutch and say, oh, this happened so poor me or I can say, I'm gonna do better. I'm gonna be better. I want to make sure that I don't do that. I think we all try to learn from our parents' mistakes to be better. We try to learn from our parents' mistakes to be better parents for ours but then we end up making our own mistakes as parents because we're not perfect either. So when we do that, we always miss the mark in one way or the other. And being, and the last part, and we can kind of close up because we're getting close to, we're at 40 minutes. When you all said that as you see me now, where I'm at at 44 years old, almost 45, eight kids and a grandkid later, wisdom. All the street smarts I have, all of the, you know, whatever normal talents or whatever you want to call it, we all have. We don't, wisdom. Because each and every one of you are a different personality. I'm blessed that God gave me eight children that are all different and unique and special in their own way. And each one of you have taught me to parent differently. Like I would say about Asher, when Adonis and Asher were the only boys and Adonis was wrestling and football and wanted to tear down walls or do whatever, and Asher just wanted to chill and watch butterflies and, you know, read a book. And I would try to push him to go out and wrestle and I'd get disappointed with him when he wouldn't do right. And as I got a little bit older, I realized, man, I told Asher all the time, and that's why he's special to me because he made me a better father. Because I realized that I was failing because I was trying to raise him the way I raised you. And it made me realize that everybody's different. And each kid that we have been blessed with, I've gotten better. Gotten better as a parent. And I realized that by experience, and I remember what your dad one day said to me about being a grandfather. I asked him, I said, are you excited about being a grandpa? One of our tons of babies we had. That was actually helpful. Yeah, and he said, yeah. He said, you know, the coolest part about it is I have more patience now. And I have held on to that my whole life. He said, more patience. It is so easy and more cooler, even though Tyson was just a great baby, to be able to enjoy the time with him and be able to work through the process of knowing he's crying for a reason. We're going to be able to fix this. And he's so much more chill. It's easier instead of being that young parent of like, ah, what's going on? So wisdom to help me be able to get better at being a father. And I think that that's probably what I would take from, like, when you guys say I'm softer. I don't think I'm softer. I think I'm smarter. It may seem like I'm softer, but I'm not. Because there's still times where I'm going to hold your little brothers accountable. And you do. Yeah, but I do it in a different way. I've learned to do it in a different way. Not just, man, that ain't good enough. Now it's words of affirmation. It's everyone's love language and how to teach them how to be better. Everybody's different. And all you can do, and that's with any leader, father, adult, coach, any type of situation, we have to learn to work with these individuals all differently because that's what our God-given gifts and talents are, is to try to find that gift and talent in each and every individual and elevate it and amplify it to be the best that they can be. And some people can't be like, no, that's not good enough. I need more. It's more of a, man, that was great, buddy. I can't wait till we do the next best thing. We're going to go higher than this next time. You ready? Now, you would have been, I need more. That wasn't fast enough. You didn't throw them high enough. Same with you. You got to be louder behind the mound. You got to lead the team. You're the boss. You're the one that sees the field. You're in charge. You understand? Not me. Good job, Princess. Good job, Princess. Thank you for seven people. I have something to say real quick. I don't think we're going through enough. Oh my gosh. This just shows how my dad was and the way he talks about it. After I won my national title, I'd run through the bracket. I had a little hiccup in the finals and the first thing he said to me, seven points. Are you kidding me? That's the first thing. But then he laughed at me. He smiled. He gave me a hug. But that just shows he didn't necessarily, it wasn't hard on us. He set a standard and his standard wasn't necessarily perfection, but it was excellence. He wanted us to be as high ability as we could imagine. And with him by our sides, I've told my parents multiple times and a lot of people, when it's just my coaches in my corner, I'm like, yeah, that's cool. When my dad's by my side, I feel invincible. There's nothing to stop me. Like he said earlier with the father figures and stuff, that is one thing that bothers me as well is a lot of boys, if I didn't have my dad, I don't know where I'd be. My dad's carried me a long way. I wouldn't be where I am without him. I love having his name. He says he's proud to give me his name, but I'm more proud to be able to represent his name as well. It's a God gift. That was my idea, by the way. Alexander. Alexander. And that's funny because look, your name could have been Alexander and then look, we ended up getting a bonus son. I think that's awesome. His last name is Alexander. That's so cool. I also think you still need to say how Faith's hurting over here. Yeah, very awesome. Thank you, honey, for marrying me. I think that with you, Faith, it was just different. You were such a bundle of joy and I'll be honest with you, for the longest time, your spirit has always gave me comfort. Your love, and that's why I tell you all the time that the type of person you are, your love language and the way that you love God and you worship and you're just such a ball of light all the time, even when you're hurting, you always made me feel good because you always were such a bright spirit and sometimes people can't handle that and I always say, don't worry about them. That's their problem. That's their loss and I'm thankful for you and that's probably why everybody tells me that you're my favorite and I try to treat you differently. If not, it's because I love you and because I'm thankful for you because you share God's love in a different way and love on people and you're just such a positive person. You try your best to be great and your work ethic is unmatched and I love that about you and I think that ... Stop getting salty. Stop. She's also different. And you look like your mom. Oh, of course. Come on now. She is definitely different from Bubba and Hope. Oh, 100%. I'm salty. We couldn't talk to her the way that we could talk to the other two so that's something as parents that we learned with the other kids too because we did try to be the same way as we were with Hope and she wasn't responsive in the same way. She did it the other way and that's okay. And that's why you guys were like, oh, you're so much nicer to her in this than the other boys. Everybody needs something different. I will crash and burn if I hear one person yell at me. It's so bad. Like, for example, we were just hitting before this and I'm already frustrated with my swing right now and all I hear is Hope go, girl, why aren't you just fixing it? And I'm just sitting here and I almost start crying because I'm like, I'm trying. It's like in the private school. Just because you are and that's okay. We learned and that's how we learned with the other boys as well because some of them were a little bit more sensitive but they felt pretty much... Man. They're nothing like Bubba, for sure, but they respond well to dad's pressure. Man, they're tough. They're tough. They're the toughest kids I know. That's the thing, man. They just... Our crew, we roll deep. We roll deep. Yeah, but I'm honest. Plus two. But they're all different and we learn to be... But they're all tough. Oh, for sure. 100%. They're all tough and I just don't think... Now. But they're also in a different generation than you. Yeah. Literally. Like I said all the time, your generation, like you and a couple of the guys at MWC or like, you know, and the generation of the kids you played football with, that generation is fizzling away and right now we're in a point where it's just like, man, these kids are like... I just... You can't even try to... You can't even positively encourage them without them being offended or try to motivate them. They're like, oh, no. It's like, man, how can I motivate somebody who just instantly... Plays that victim. Yeah. It's just hard. So I try to... Luckily, we have already set a standard of expectations in our household where the boys understand and they know, hey, you know what? Nah, dude. We need more. And most of the time they come off already knowing like, for instance, Elijah, when he plays football, if he has a bad game, you don't even have to say anything to him. He's going to come off his own. They did terrible. They did awful. They got this, this, this, and this. And that's... And I'll be honest with you. But that is one thing that you guys have matured as parents, though. Back when Hope, Faith, and I were kids and we would say that, we'd be like, you're right. Now, once again, you guys are more open-ended and you're like, well, what can we do to fix that? That is one thing that you guys... That's what I would say. Dad would be like, no, what you need to do is we're going to be at practice at 30 minutes early. Yeah, but you know... I mean, that's the thing, man. You had a bad practice. It's you go home, that's how we live. And I'm going to be honest with you. The other thing is this. All three of you are the most like your mom and I when it comes to, again, the old me. Like you say that right now that I... You are reflections of us during your time when you're growing, correct? So, your younger siblings are far more coachable. They listen more and they're more active, willing to change. So, you guys are the most like your mom and I when it comes to change. So, I don't have to be like, look, dude, you have to do this or we're going to have issues. Now... Now... Don't you even call me and tell me you struck out. Yeah. But think about this. When I would tell... When you... When you all... When my... How do I put this? Going back to when you were all your little brother's ages, how often were you told, Don, you better start listening? You don't listen. You don't listen. You just go out there. I stand in the corner and be like, grab his leg. No, I'm grabbing his head. Grab his leg. No, head throw. Hope, use your legs. Use your legs. No, you got to swing with your legs too, Hope. And then you're like, I got this. Okay. Imagine, look, you're hitting home runs with not using your legs. Imagine if you use your legs. And then you would never change. You weren't willing to change because that's... At that point in my life as a father, I was your example and I wasn't willing to change. I was never wrong, right? You get what I'm saying? That's how deep of an impact as a parent we have on you where you're a reflection of where I was at in my life as a father. Now, as I'm changing, the younger siblings are more apt to listen because they see us being changing as well and growing. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think that makes sense. Yeah. Gosh, man, I just learned that right now. And to be fair, Hope and I always did go against people that were older than us. Absolutely. I feel assaulted. You always played up. Insulted? I was 18 years old when I was 14 years old. That's the thing. With dad, I'm an eight-year-old wrestling 13, 14-year-old kids. Oh, he took you down? Defense tonight. As soon as we get home, we're getting on the mat at home. We're wrestling on the carpet. Sorry, you can't relate, Faith. It's the thing that you don't want to relate with. But you know what? But you know what? But that's the whole point. You all played up because you were able to. And again, I didn't realize You wanted to challenge us. You didn't want to hold us back. Yeah, absolutely. I wanted you to be uncomfortable. That's right. That's what I'm trying to say. No, if you were going to be, how are you going to get better if you're going to sit there and you're dominating people that are your age and you're built bigger, you're stronger, faster, whatever, what would you do? I was like, no. To be honest, when we were playing football, they passed a flyer around for you to get kicked out of the league at BJSA. He was 8U, playing 10U. They were like, what do you want us to do? Play 14U? What are we supposed to do? Literally. No, but I'm just being, and I'm not tooting your guys' horns. I'm just talking about in general, we have to play you out. I would have been doing you a disservice by limiting you. If you're, I remember a good friend of mine told me, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. If you're the strongest, if you're the strongest, toughest, whatever you want to call it, player, and you can go up a level, I would be doing you a disservice by allowing you to sit there and be stagnant because you're not going to get better. Why would I not want to push you and say, you know what? We're going to go play up a little bit so we can make you better so we can actually challenge you. Because if you don't and you're not uncomfortable, how are you going to grow? How are you going to grow? I didn't even realize that. Even then, as the way we parent, we've always parented to push the kids out of their comfort zone and be better. And that's the truth. Think about that. And we do it with the younger boys too. Oh yeah. That's the thing about now is a lot of people, when they get uncomfortable, we're chilling. We're fine now. You guys can take the pressure. We can really, not necessarily, it's not even pressure. It's just like a, it's not even necessarily pressure. It's just we're used to it, I guess, as we can say. We've adapted to it. To uncomfortableness? Yeah, being uncomfortable. Absolutely. When stuff gets hard, we go see these kids. That's the thing. There's a lot of people, you know, when they feel a little bump and a bruise, oh, I'm done. I'm done. I'm out. Now, you know, my dad, busted out my knee in sixth grade. You keep wrestling, boy. Oh, wow. Think about when I broke my wrist and I had to play a whole weekend with a broken wrist. That was your choice. Or, no, we're bringing out, that's going to be an episode we're going to do. As a matter of fact, that is an episode we're doing. It's going to be called The Pimple. The Abscess. Oh, man. Oh, the story. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Oh, my God. You know what? But, but the thing is, you know, it let us, it let us all greatness. We can taper this down a little bit. Hey, look over here. Hang a line. Is anybody else hungry? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, but think about this though. This is before I even realized that this word was going to be used for where we're at right now. I have always parented that way. Yes. I have never quit. I don't give up. Yes. I push you all to be great because I don't want you to waste your potential. And the only way you can reach your potential or higher is by setting your goals higher. You know, and that goes back to what Hope has said earlier. What did you say? How did you say it? You would always, I would always, uh, you were hot on this. You said super high expectations. Absolutely. And there would always be more. Once we get our, once we get that first one. Okay. What's next? What's next? I would always set my goals higher than I knew I could get done. If I need to get five things done today, I'm setting my goal for seven. You know why? Because I'm going to get six done. When people sit there, you know, does it leave me feeling a little bit of an unaccomplished that I didn't make my goal? Well, how the hell am I going to get better? How am I going to achieve more? If I would have set my goal for five when I needed to get five done, I would have settled for four. I'm not, I'm not made that way. And that's why I tried to push on you guys. Same thing with the, with the, with the excellence, the level of expectations. How can I get you to the highest limit that your potential can be if I don't expect you to go higher? It's just, it's normal. Yeah. It's what we should do. If we love our kids, we should push them to be great. Yeah. To be great, to get uncomfortable. Yeah. Yes. Todd, there's no limit. It's no limit. So how are we circling back? Yeah. We're, we're, this is what I'm learning on this too. What are we? We can talk for hours and be all over the board. I think, I think we were pretty good on this. I think we just need to circle it. And it's like, like all the topics we did talk about, it was basically an ADHD filled conversation. Um, I don't think so. Every, no, I'm joking. Every topic we, we talked about was just filled with uncomfortableness, whether it was involving God, whether it was you guys putting us in a position that we knew we didn't understand why, but you guys understood why every topic we talked about was an uncomfortable thing that we had to go through along with you guys to be successful. And in life, people don't realize you have to be uncomfortable if you want to grow. And that's the whole point of the podcast and the whole point of what you want to do with it. And we're examples of living uncomfortably. And we're young examples. And on top of that, you know, that's one of the things too, you are living uncomfortably and I got five minutes and I want to, I want to, this is how I'm going to close it out. And thank you for doing that. Cause that worked out perfect. With a family of our size, with a family of our size, how we divide and conquer every day so all of us can succeed is just awesome. And we are uncomfortable all the time because we push and run and divide and conquer. You're going over here to take your brother here. I'm going here. I'm going to meet there real quick to practice. I'm flying to Boston so I can be at faith games. Yeah. Adonis is going to this practice, that practice here. We're going all over these different areas doing different things. And your mom is, and I are separated a lot, a lot of sacrifices. There's times where we argue and bicker. We were arguing and bickering before we started this podcast. There are times where we argue and bicker at Thanksgiving. It doesn't matter where we're at because we are always pushing our limits to be better. 100%. And people will sit there and say, well, aren't you sacrificing your happiness? No. I'm happy. I'm happy. I'm happy because I know I'm pushing my kids to be great. And as long as I can do that, I'm totally comfortable and I'm happy with that. And I just feel like that's probably where I wanted to really go with all this for sure. I don't know. Gosh, I'm getting tired. I'm not going to lie. Adonis, that was a good way to end it. Good job. We're all doing high fives. You know what? We're going to thank you all for listening. Thanks, folks. What are you doing? Oh, push that one more time. Yeah, the clap and the hand. Sorry, folks. This might have to be hard on him. If you don't get the right button, you're grounded. Thank you, guys. I like the headstand. Yeah. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right.