290 | Being Present Over Perfect, Gamifying Fatherhood, and Staying Curious (Jeff Zaugg)
Episode Description
Jeff Zaugg steps behind the microphone in this episode to share his personal fatherhood journey and how he adds adventure and intentionality to the dad life. Interviewed by Dr. Michelle Canfield Watson, Jeff shares powerful encouragement and insights for fathers in any stage of parenting.
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Jeff Zaugg is the founder of DadAwesome and Fathers for the Fatherless, two ministries that resource and rally dads through engaging podcasts and 100-mile bike rides. Jeff and his wife, Michelle, have been married for seventeen years and are parents to four daughters.
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· Tell your children you love being their dad.
· Challenge yourself to step into the unknown with your whole heart.
· You can gamify every stage of fathering.
· Most fathers rank themselves worse than average, but you can flip the script.
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· Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield’s Website
· Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield’s Books
· DadAwesome Episode 277 (Part 1), with Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield
· DadAwesome Episode 277 (Part 2), with Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield
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Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I’m going to be an awesome dad because I’m gonna give it my all.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:38] So the motivation comes partially from my wife cheering me on, she is a cheerleader. Partially the motivation comes from commitment. I’ve decided, I’ve committed that I’m going to stay after pursuing their hearts. That means it doesn’t matter how yesterday went. I’m going to choose to get that one on one time. I’m going to choose to take those moments to bless my girls before they fall asleep. I’m going to choose to give my wife that Saturday morning off by herself and just make it a make it a dad, daughter, daughter, daughter, daughter adventure. So, so how do I stay motivated? It’s less brotherhood, right now, because I’m traveling the country. I’m away from my closest friends. I’m away, I’m on the road. It’s more, man, I’m in it and I’ve chosen, hey, I’m going to stay after it. Welcome back to DadAwesome. Today, episode 290, is going to be a bit of a change. So about once a year, not that often, I’ll do a mic flip conversation, where someone else interviews me. And we’re just ten weeks away from celebrating episode 300. After this mission for 300 weeks. So today, yours truly, my name is Jeff Zaugg. I’m going to be featured as the guest and my, one of my new favorite people, Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield. She interviewed me for her podcast. We connected in early May. I was at her house with her and her husband Ken in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and she pulled out the microphone. She’s been leading the Dad Whisperer podcast for, my goodness, I actually don’t recall right now as I’m recording this intro, but longer than DadAwesome, and she is amazing. Been resourcing dads for about 12 years, focused on dads and daughters. And she interviewed me for an episode of her show, The Dad Whisperer podcast. And I asked hey permission, I was like, Man, this would be, if there’s a conversation that I think would be helpful for all of our DadAwesome community, a mic flip conversation, this would be it. And she so graciously said, Go for it. So you can find linked in the show notes, her podcast, all the resources and then also the mic flip the other direction when I interviewed her for DadAwesome back in Mom Month. But guys, this is a conversation that I, you know, I hesitate to do mic flip conversations because it’s just so easy to kind of have doubts. But I want to read Ephesians 3 verse 20 in The Passion Translation, The Passion paraphrase translation. And here I believe this is for all of us, for myself included, it says this Ephesians 3:20, Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination. He will outdo them all for his miraculous power, constantly energizes you. Guys, some of you are feeling tired, some of you are feeling discouraged. Some of you are doubting that God’s mighty power is actively at work within you, that He, He’s going to accomplish more than your most unbelievable dreams. Guys, we need to be dads that live as dreamers. We need to be dads that don’t doubt, that actually live with great faith. That live leaning forward saying, man, oh, man, God’s miraculous power is going to energize me. I’m going to bring God’s power into the dad life. I’m not going to lead for my own strength. So that’s my prayer for you guys as I as I welcome you into this mic flip conversation. This is episode 290, and I hope this helps you guys.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:04:24] Today we’re going to unpack some of how he is an intentional dad to four little girls. My goodness. He’ll tell you about them in just a minute. Jeff spent ten years in entrepreneurial nonprofit ministry leadership and also served as a pastor in the Twin Cities area for seven years. Then in the fall of 20, smack dab in the middle of COVID, he took a leap with his family, went into full time fatherhood ministry and with his wife, Michelle, and as I said, four little girls, they are traveling the country in a 37 foot RV. Okay. This guy literally has the word adventure tattooed, it’s it’s invisible, but really, he could on his forehead. And you are going to love just hearing about his enthusiasm for life and for his kids and for his wife. Jeff Zaugg, as I said, is the founder and lead cheerleader at DadAwesome and Fathers for the Fatherless. So we’re going to be talking about both of those things today. And his life purpose statement is simply this, he says, We’re on a mission to add life to the dad life. We’re passionate about helping dads live fully alive as they lead their kids to God’s awesomeness. So, Jeff Zaugg, thank you for being here today.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:34] Michelle, I’m thrilled to join you today and thank you for that introduction. We, our mission at DadAwesome is like, could we just be the cheerleaders? Can we cheer on dads to love the dad life? So I feel like our mission of like, ready, set, go. It’s like, that’s what I want to do is just cheer on. And I need that in my life. I need people cheering for me. So thank you for being one of those people.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:05:53] Well, it’s a joy to have you here. Well, on your mark today, here’s what I’ve come up with as a title is Intentional Fathering: A Father’s Awesome Journey With His Four Young Daughters. So how about you just start. I wanted to use the word journey because, I mean, you love biking, you love adventure, right? You love the outdoors and and you’re doing life with your family without four walls on the ground. And so really, I thought this whole idea of a journey like is is really to me, along with being intentional, really, I think captures you and your heart. So how about here if we just start get set with you telling a little bit about your heart and what led you to do this RV trip, especially with four young girls? Tell us the story.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:38] Sure. I love it. I love it. And quickly, awesome journey is not perfect journey at all. So, so just I mean, just two days ago for Mother’s Day, we went on a hike and my four year old was running down a hill, tripped, skidded, blood all over her arms. And like, that is often like the awesome journey, it was actually an awesome hike as a family. She, we got Band-Aids on her, she was okay. But like, that’s part of when you say like an intentional awesome journey that’s that’s my heart, the ministry that I lead, that’s our heart, that’s my family’s heart is not perfection. Because dads often they hear the word DadAwesome, this name DadAwesome. They’re like, Well, that’s not me. And yet the heartbeat of everything we do is like, Can we help dads see the role as a gift and step in with intentionality and step in with knowing, I’m not perfect, but I’m going to go after their hearts.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:07:23] Yes, fail forward.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:24] That’s it. That’s it.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:07:25] Right? Because your kids, say how old they are.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:28] Yeah. So my my little girls are two, four, six and nine. So that’s the window we’re in. My little two year old has actually lived the majority of her life in the RV.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:07:38] That’s awesome.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:38] I mean the to go back just a moment, the the start of this was I was a kids pastor. I was praying over these these families who came to dedicate their babies and I’m praying over them and realizing I’m offering them nothing in the area, the dad. I’m offering no intentional pathway for them to be that that dad who is DadAwesome. We’re offering nothing to them. So I was like, Oh, we’re not doing it, our other church is offering a pathway of intentionality, and very few churches are helping the dads do that. So I started looking for resources, and in looking for resources, I realized, hey, the best way is what if I curated those resources in the form of a podcast? So I just gather, interview, learn for myself and for others. And that was five and a half years ago. So five and a half years into helping resource dads, resource churches with just tools to, again, be DadAwesome, not perfect, but but awesome. And that led our family to going on this journey. We started these events called Fathers for the Fatherless, these bike rides, Spartan races, triathlons, across the country, helping rally men to raise awareness and raise money for our partner organizations who serve directly. They serve kids who are fatherless.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:08:44] Love it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:45] So we got invitations to go around the country, and I was like, I don’t want to be a dad who flies away from my four little girls to help lead this movement across the country. I want to be a dad who takes them with, if possible. So we borrowed an RV to start with. We borrowed an RV and we did this crazy lap, is like, There’s no way my wife should have liked that and wanted to do more of it. But she, my wife, Michelle, she said, let’s let’s just see if there’s an RV that we could buy to actually go on the road full time to help lead this initiative, this cause, across the country. We found the RV, we rented our house and we hit the road within two weeks. And this was a year and a half ago.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:09:16] Oh my goodness.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:17] So that led to the start of this adventure that is DadAwesome and Fathers for the Fatherless. And as my girls are saying, we’re all in. We’re doing this as a family, not as a dad who flies away from us.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:09:25] Isn’t that cool? You know, I wanted to go back to this whole idea of awesome. I love that you underscored. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being present.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:33] Yeah.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:09:34] And if you asked, I know, because I’m going to ask your girls later today when we hang out. Like, you know, on a scale of 0 to 10, how awesome is your dad? You know, so often when we get around kids, they don’t care for perfect. They don’t care if our hair’s messy. They don’t care if we blow it. It’s just you show up in their space, right? That’s what makes you awesome. And I think so many dads have been beaten down for this reason, that reason, divorce, maybe moral failure, different things, financial, you know, challenges, whatever. And so, so many men are are saying, I don’t think I’m awesome, but I’m saying ask your kids. Because when you look at yourself through their lens and just show up in their world, do you find that?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:10:18] Yeah, and actually they looking at your eyes. So the fact we’re in person is really fun, Michelle.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:10:21] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:10:22] But like, the gauge of are my eyes shining, are my eyes shining? The world, again, beats us up. Our job, rough at work, a rough, you know, house project going poorly. You know, lots of things could cause us to, our eyes to kind of dim a little bit. And most of us, if you look at even some of the research, because of our own dad and because of the experience we had as a child, we enter fatherhood with things stacked against us to come in feeling like I’m obligated to be a dad versus I get to be a dad. And the dad who says, like, I get to be a dad, has shiny eyes. A dad who says, This is a gift. Like, this is a gift. It’s hard. It’s one of the hardest things we’ve ever done, right? Like, we’re ill prepared for it. There’s no way, you can’t give a manual. This is how you step in and are a great intentional dad. So if we come in there with our eyes a little bit dim, not sparkly, not shiny, that’s contagious and our kids see a dad who is grumbling his way through dad life or is surviving his way through dad life versus a dad who is saying, I get to be a dad. And then again, that causes, I believe that causes our kids to know, Oh, my dad loves to be a dad. And we have to use our words to actually tell them to. I love that I get to be your dad. It’s one of the statements that just my girls eyes just shine when I say that to them.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:11:33] Like, seriously, Jeff, like you’re I’ve literally teary, like, Oh, that just touches me because I know that so many dads don’t love it. They’re exhausted from their jobs or beat up at work and they come home, you know, and they don’t have much to give. And that dad may be your go step today. Jeff, tell them again. I want you guys to repeat this right now out loud after you hear Jeff say it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:59] So good and often it’s get down on their level, so don’t say it while you’re walking in the other direction, get down on their level, on your hands and knees get right down to their eyes.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:12:05] So they can see your eyes.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:06] Exactly. The eye to eye contact.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:12:07] Eye to eye.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:08] And this could be on the floor during, you know, during the dinner hour or it could be as you’re putting them to bed, like to get right down. And this is my six year old, if I look her right in the eyes, I touch her, so I’m reaching out and touching her too. Little physical contact.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:12:18] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:18] Look her in the eyes, I’m like, I tell her, I say, I love that I get to be your dad. I’m so thankful that I get to be a dad. You are a treasure. Like these, these statements, but it really the I statements of like truly this is the best thing is that I get to be your dad. So that’s what I would encourage them to say.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:12:34] I love that. Okay. Well, I was intrigued doing my research on you, that you were very intentional. That’s the word throughout this this whole conversation today is dad, you blink and your kids are gone. And if you’re not intentional, you’re going to miss really stepping it up, right. To be the dad your kids need and your daughter needs. So I want you to explain a little bit about this intentional 40 thing, because here’s what you wrote about it. You said, I think in general, as I get older and as most of us dads get a little older, it’s easy to play it safe and to coast. And you said, I think at the age of 40, if we’re not careful, we will end up being drawn and we will drift and be pulled in the direction of the world, in the direction of comfort, in the direction of more is better, in the direction of this is just the direction and we get pulled in the next phase. More busyness, more hustle. And I think intentionality requires us to fight against the pull that we’re drawn toward. I mean, I had to write that out, Jeff, because it was, it was so profound. So what I want to ask is, how are you since then? Because how old are you now?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:42] Yeah, 41 and change.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:13:44] Okay.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:44] Yeah.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:13:44] So in the last year and a half, how have you put into motion the things that you set out to do and what did you set out to be intentional about at the age of 40?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:55] Yeah. Amazing. Thanks for asking. And it has been an imperfect journey of the intentional 40. So I call it the intentional 40. I turned 40, as you mentioned, about 14 months ago, and I said, Hey, if I could get more intentional moments with my wife, that would that would be good in so many levels, more intentional moments with my girls, more intentional moments with friends and more intentional moments with mentors. So I said, these are four categories of one on ones with my girls, date nights with my wife or date experiences with my wife, mentor experiences, not just conversations, have coffee, let’s go do something together with a mentor. And then friend, I just feel like again, I mentioned drifting. The drift, I want to be a dad, a man, a follower of Jesus who is dreaming and not drifting. And our dreams, often we have to take action to spark bigger dreams, and we have to stretch ourselves and be a little bit vulnerable and do something that’s hard, I’ve never done it before. So an example of this would be rock climbing. I’ve never been outdoor rock climbing. I turned 40 and about six months later my daughter had her ninth birthday. She’s never been outdoor rock climbing. Neither of us ever been. I’m certainly not going to go do that myself with her because I can’t, I can’t safely set that up. So I had to reach out to a mentor and ask, Hey, do you know someone that could take us rock climbing? We actually ended up spending an entire morning with a gentleman named Alex that took us out on her birthday, her ninth birthday, we went rock climbing for the first time. And my shoes didn’t fit, they hurt so bad, these climbing shoes. I was like, in pain, like a little kid. And my daughter’s nervous and we drove back from that experience and we’ll never, neither of us will ever forget it. We both, like, pushed ourselves beyond our comforts. We both learned from a new mentor, friends who cared deeply, who prayed over us. I mean, God brought this whole experience together. But if it wasn’t for the intentional 40, I would not have had that moment, shared those moments with her. And so I’m about 23 experiences into the 40 right now. And I wasn’t trying by a certain date, it was just like in my forties, I’m going to do 40 intentional experiences, ten with my wife, ten with my girls, again, ten with mentors, ten with friends. And it has been a journey of like, I’m on the lookout for people, these are specific mentors. I’m like, Hey, what, what could we do? And these are not big bucket list things.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:16:00] To invite those mentors to teach you something they know.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:03] It’s a skill or experience that they, so, yeah, one of my mentors, it was jeeping in the mountains. He has a jeep. He’s deeply passionate about it. I’ve never driven a jeep in the mountains. And he took me out and coached and trained me and pushed me. I mean, there’s there’s certain experiences that are a little shorter, no training required. There’s other ones like doing the Murph workout that it was a massive amount of training to be ready for that or a Spartan, my first Spartan race, was a lot of training and preparedness to do that event.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:16:27] Right.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:27] So anyways, both sides. But it is not a bucket list, take me away from my family to go do my dream list. It’s not a midlife crisis thing like that, it’s truly intentional and their shared experiences with people that I love dearly.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:16:39] And you know, you may be a dad listening saying, I just am not as extroverted as Jeff. I don’t think I could ask someone to teach me something. What would you say to that Dad?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:51] Yeah, So it’s it’s it’s a matter of saying, is there someone at your coffee shop that you go to or at your work or a uncle or a grandparents or a in-laws, someone in your sphere that you respect for some aspect of their life. So you don’t need the perfect person. Is there someone that you can say, Hey, I want to learn from you? And I was wondering, could you, could we do this thing together? So I don’t think it’s a huge, it’s a huge it’s not a forever mentoring situation. It’s hey, would you spend a two hours with me doing this thing?
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:17:19] Yeah one time. And you bring your kids with you, one of your daughters?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:17:21] So. Nope. So the experiences are ten with my girls.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:17:24] Okay, so you don’t always combine them like you did?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:17:26] No. So that one, it was actually it was just because I needed someone to help.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:17:29] I see.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:17:30] It was not a mentor experience. It was a, it was a dad daughter experience.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:17:33] Got it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:17:33] I just had to bring a guide with, in that case.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:17:35] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:17:35] So it’s either with my daughters, my wife, a friend or a mentor, that’s kind of the constraint that I put, is I care about those four things in my forties as I head into my forties, fifties, sixties, I want to be growing in those four relational areas and why not do it with a spark of fun? New experiences that I’ve never done before.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:17:54] So, Dad, take the four things Jeff is doing, make them your own. You don’t have to recreate or reinvent the wheel, and I love how you even have said, again, I did my research on you. You said through these things that I do intentionally, I want to stay curious, I want to be a learner, I want to stay humble and I want to be in this growth mindset. So because more, we know that cliché, mores caught than taught, your daughters, your young daughters are watching you, aren’t they? They’re seeing, wow, my dad tries new things. My dad asks for help. I think that is a stance of humility to say, hey, will you teach me something? Have you had any of the people you’ve asked say no?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:35] No, not yet. I’ve got a few that are just on the like, we’re keeping on the lookout for when our schedules overlap in the same city and so things like that.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:18:43] Yeah, but not a no.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:44] No one has turned me down.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:18:45] Okay. So men listen to that. If you think I don’t want to ask, I’d be an inconvenience or I’ll probably get a no and I don’t want to face the rejection.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:52] And you can always start, you don’t have to start with the mentor circle either. You can start with again your kids. So I took my six year old on a tour of an aircraft carrier. It’s like, well, it costs $20 each to get access in San Diego to that aircraft carrier. But there is no training required. There was no, it’s a half day with her. But I entered a learner, that’s not my preference, isn’t to go tour, I’m not a big history guy in a sense of go through and read the exhibits or watch the videos or learn. But we did it together because she’s fascinated by pilots and just in general, flying or driving things is something that interests her. So so we did that experience together. If it’s with your kids or with your spouse or with a friend, I feel like there’s no barrier for any of us to like want to do something engaging or intentional. So the mentor one, I get that, what you’re saying though, is the mentors to ask them for a half a day or a day of their time, maybe don’t start with that bucket, maybe start the other, the other three.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:19:43] Yeah, something a little easier. Jeff, when you were just talking about entering into the interest areas of your daughters, you can tell that you’re listening, you’re watching, you’re seeing maybe even a natural bent at little ages. Two, three, four, five, six. Right?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:19:59] That’s right.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:20:00] So it means you have to get close enough to see that. And it reminded me that maybe if you’re listening in, you’re you’re a mom or you’re an aunt is I have a nephew, my oldest nephew, who’s now married, has two kids of his own. But when he was about 12 or 13, I knew he wanted to be a pilot.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:20:14] Yeah.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:20:15] And they lived in another state, came to Oregon. I knew we had the Spruce Goose, so I took him on a, on a museum date and surprised him with a glider ride where he got to go up and be taken into the air. And then I did a second one where in another part of Oregon, I booked a flight, an hour of a flight, got him a flight book, and I got to sit in the back seat. So, you know, I would have never done that on my own. But if you’re a dad, that’s maybe, okay I’m going to be blunt, gotten lazy and just thought, you know, she’s not really into me right now. You know, she’s in high school and moody. Dad, find something she wants to do. It’ll perk her up and it may be shopping, and you’re like, I hate shopping. Do it anyway. Is that what you’d say?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:21:00] Yeah. I mean, my, my nine year old like trapeze right now, she did a little bit of, she has experience doing trapeze. She did like a little camp last summer and she like so she knows this summer she wants to set it up where I do trapeze with her. I’ve never liked the idea of flying and, like, I’m a pretty big guy, and, but, like, she’s interested and, like, that’s that’s like, for me to step in and say, I’ll do that. But it’s almost because I challenge myself and I made it a little bit public with telling others, Hey, I’m going to do these 40 new experiences. So, and my girls know that and they’re like, they’re like, Come on, Dad, let’s do this.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:21:31] And if you’re a dad, again, listening, saying, My daughter loves, let’s say, baking, cooking and you’re like, I, I’m a klutz in the kitchen. It reminds me a few years ago, I got to go to the maximum security prison in Salem, Oregon, And my first book had just come out and a dad came up, I handed him the book, and I think I did a drawing and he won. He said, I get out of prison in two months and my daughter is nine and I’m terrified. Can you give me something? Where do I start? I haven’t known her for a number of years. It’s been real intermittent connecting. Where do I start? I said find something she’s good at and let her teach you. There’s another variation on the theme. And he said, well she really likes cooking, like baking. I said, Go in the kitchen, you’re not the expert. She’ll shine because you’re looking through her eyes, right?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:24] I love that.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:22:24] She loves it. So, Dad, that might be even a variation on the theme. Okay, one more question, then we’ll take a quick break. Some dads, and moms to, may say I’m not really a baby guy. You know, I got to wait till she’s older. In fact, I just had a conversation this week where a friend said, I don’t like babies. Once they hit one, I’m good, then. You know, So everybody kind of has their maybe natural, innate leaning toward a certain age. How did you navigate, you know, going, oh, a diaper phase or walking phase or knocking things over phase or adventure phase? What would you say to the dad with young daughters and he’s like, I’m not really gifted for all the ages?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:02] Yeah. When we had our first daughter, I had never changed a diaper. I never babysat. I didn’t have a younger siblings or, you know, nieces, nephews. So I like, I was truly in new territory, total rookie. And I actually challenged myself to change all the diapers for the first two weeks because I was home, I had two weeks off work. And I don’t know if I fully hit that goal because my wife definitely she was she’s awesome. But the idea of like challenge myself to to step beyond comforts in whatever area is serving your your wife. So for the dads that like I’ve never been here before or like, man, I’ve got other kids, I’ll take care of them, we’ll leave the baby to mom. I would just encourage you, like go with the kind of ridiculous challenge, like step in further than expected. And I know that my wife saw with our third and fourth daughter a much higher degree of like, oh, Jeff stepped in to new areas because she needed the help and because I was like, Well, what’s a new challenge I haven’t done before? So so that would be my encouragement is like step in with your whole heart into areas that are like changing diapers and you can make it fun. There’s always a trash can across the room to shoot the diaper in afterwards. You can make it fun.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:24:11] Because again, I’ve discovered that men would rather do nothing than do it wrong.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:15] Yeah. Don’t do that.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:24:15] And so if you’re a dad that says, you know, I don’t do it as good as my wife, like, she’s better at this, that or the other. No, doing nothing is doing it wrong. And and to be able to step in in an imperfect way, that’s how you become an awesome dad to your daughter, if you aren’t already that.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:34] Right. We just create a game called Jammie Ball where you take the pajamas and roll them into a ball and it becomes a like a basketball type game in the living room. So you can create, you can gamify every stage of parenting. You can gamify.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:24:46] Okay. There’s your book.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:47] Oh, Funny.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:24:48] Gamify Fathering.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:50] You really can.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:24:51] Because how many dads would that be a game changer?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:54] Right.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:24:55] For them to think about, how can I make something mundane more fun?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:59] And how can you create a score keeping method? Because this this is dad life. You don’t have any immediate results. The game, you know, playing a sport, you know, did you win or did you lose in the dad life? You actually have no idea. Maybe when my girls turned 40, I’ll be to look back and say, Did I win or lose? Like, there’s really no tangible, did I win this chapter this evening? The bedtime tonight, did I win or lose? It feels like loss after loss after loss. In some ways, parenting for the dad, it’s like, am I, is this even working? Is any of this working? So that would be the point to gamification, if you can create ways like a challenge of having to do a one on one date with my daughter or one on one with my son, hey, twice a month. Like that’s quantifying so you can at least say, Did I do it or did I not do it? And so gamification and then in brotherhood is the other encouragement with that is like gamify it. Create a scoring mechanism and then cheer each other on by saying well done or get after it, you didn’t do it this month, get after it. So we need some of that.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:25:55] I love it. Well, we’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, we’ll continue this conversation with Jeff Zaugg. We’ll be right back.
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Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:26:57] Welcome back. I’m here today with my new friend Jeff Zaugg. Founder of, tell them the two names of your ministries.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:05] So, DadAwesome and Fathers for the Fatherless.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:27:07] So can you guys see as you’ve heard him already talking, why I came up with that title today, Intentional Fathering: A Dad’s Awesome Journey With His Four Young Daughters because those two themes, awesomeness and intentionality, really define you. Does everyone say that?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:25] So it’s interesting, the more I dive in, five and a half years of hosting the podcast, I mean, that’s a lot of episodes of like there’s more and more to learn. It’s I could feel like, well, there’s a hundred areas of intentionality and I’m only able to do six of them right now. So I could actually feel like because of the amount I’ve immersed myself in this field of being DadAwesome, that I’m the biggest failure. It’s so crazy how we can look at a mirror and basically feel like an imposter or feel like, Nope, that’s not me, I’m not succeeding. And actually, to go after that point a step further, I think most dads feel like if they’re going to rank themselves were worse than average. I think most of us rank ourselves that way.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:28:03] I do too.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:28:03] So most dads don’t actually raise their hand and say, I’ll go first. I’ll be, I’ll be the guy who says, Hey, to my friends, let’s all learn about intentional fatherhood. Hey, let’s all do this experience with our our daughters, or let’s all do this camping trip with our our sons. Most dads don’t raise their hand and say, I’ll go first or become a champion of intentional fatherhood. So that’s where I flip all the way back to like, do most people say that I’m intentional and that I’m an awesome dad? In some ways, I feel like it’s rare that dads, including myself, feel like I’m good enough to do that.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:28:33] I appreciate your vulnerability on that because again, that’s what I found in the dads groups I’ve led. Talking with men at conferences is so often it’s yeah, it’s a less than.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:28:43] Yeah, because of shame or because, oh man, I messed up here or I didn’t have this that I can’t be the one to champion that and say, no, I am DadAwesome. I am. And that’s what we said, we encourage and say, No, you are DadAwesome like you are right now, in this current.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:28:56] Just because you’re a dad, not because you’ve earned it. It’s in who you are.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:29:01] Yep. And we are always becoming. We’re always becoming. It’s not an arrival.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:29:04] Exactly. Okay, so, oh, I have so many questions for you. Okay. How do you stay motivated and inspired and equipped even to really connect with your daughters at every age and stage?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:29:17] So this current phase we’re in, we’re living in very close proximity because we’re in an RV right now, traveling the country with this ministry. And so the motivation actually, I mean, they’re right there were real close even like often I’ll be working from, I’ll step out of the RV to the picnic table, I’m working from there. It’s wild. In some ways it’s really hard because of the closeness and proximity. But the other side of that is it’s right in front of me what’s going well and what’s not going well. So the motivation comes partially from my wife cheering me on. She is a cheerleader. Partially, motivation comes from commitment. I’ve decided that I’ve committed that I’m going to stay after pursuing their hearts. So that means it doesn’t matter how yesterday went. I’m going to choose to get that, to get that one on one time. I’m going to choose to take those moments to bless my girls before they fall asleep. I’m going to take, I’m going to choose to give my wife that Saturday morning off by herself and just make it a make it a dad, daughter, daughter, daughter, daughter adventure. So, so the how do I stay motivated? It’s less brotherhood right now because I’m traveling the country. I’m away from my closest friends. I’m away. I’m on the road. And it’s more than I’m in it and I’ve chosen, Hey, I’m going to stay after it.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:30:23] So did your dad model this kind of fathering to you?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:30:26] Yeah. Great question. So my dad was DadAwesome. But part of that is he was not Dad perfect, is what we’ve talked about already. So he loved me. He encouraged me, he cheered for me. But he actually had a clipboard at all of my basketball games and all the sporting events and kept stats. Given that if I had a good shooting percentage, a lot of rebounds, more steals, he showed me more love based on the performance on the sport in sports and in other areas. So there was conditional love is part of what he probably learned from his dad.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:30:56] I just was going to say that.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:30:58] It’s it. He actually took what he experienced from his dad and took it much further forward as far as intentionality. But there was not a deep relational, emotional connection, that came mostly from my mom. My dad, three and a half years ago, went home to heaven. And in the, this is a small side story, but Episode one of DadAwesome, I released that. The next day, my dad rushed to the hospital with brain cancer, lung cancer is what they found out. So his health journey took a dive right after this ministry started, the day after. Episode 100 of DadAwesome launched, and the next day my dad went home to heaven.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:31:32] Wow.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:31:33] So we had 100 weeks, my dad and I and the healing journey. And I’d encourage every dad listening, healing the next layer of freedom, of reconciliation, of healing. There’s always another layer. It’s like an onion, right?
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:31:45] Oh, come on.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:31:45] There’s more hurt that can be explored and not, there’s pain in that, but, man, the healing and the freedom and the joy and peace. So we actually had that in those 100 weeks as the foundation of the ministry DadAwesome was a foundation of healing and really my dad giving me a boost. And now I can take my journey and share and help other dads. It really was beautiful. And so I wrote a letter to my dad. The first page was all the things he got right, and there’s a lot of things my dad got right.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:32:10] Then gave it to him? Or this is your own process?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:32:12] So this is six months after he passed away. Now, we did actually have tons of I’d never handed him a letter, but lots and lots of conversations those 100 weeks. But six months after he passed away, I wrote a letter. First page was these are the ways you got it right. And actually, this was inspired by John Tyson, which many of your listeners have heard him talk about his letter. The other side is dad, these are things that caused me pain. Instead of leaving it in letter form, I wrote it at a rock about the size of a laptop. I found a rock and I wrote with a Sharpie marker, the things that caused that I’m so grateful for on one side of the rock, the other side was the deep pain. And I actually swam that rock to the middle of my lake where I grew up, as a boy, in Wisconsin. And swimming with a heavy rock is a you feel it, you feel it. Many of your listeners probably…
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:32:54] Figurative.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:32:55] Yeah. The heaviness. Swam out to the lake and I just prayed a prayer of just God, thank you for my dad. Thank you for the gift that he was. Thank you for the gift that he still is in my life. And I am going to just let go of any pain, any burden, any any of the trickle down of hurt for my dad. I’m going to let it all go. Let go of the rock, watched it tumble through the water and out of sight, into the darkness, swam back, feeling so light, so much peace. And I do believe generationally, it’s a big deal to let go of that rock. To actually make the list, and if your dad is alive, if possible, to bring in a way, not the weight of it, but the blessing of it. Because I really did bless him with the first and then the other side, just saying, Dad, I, I forgive you for the second side.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:33:34] Absolutely. I’m going to let that go.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:33:36] Yes. Such a gift. That was a pivotal moment for me in this journey of my trusting God for my daughters. And and Deuteronomy 30:19 says, I’ve set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your kids may live. My dad did choose life, imperfectly, but he chose life. So I get to be blessed forward from that.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:33:57] I so appreciate you. And I would say a very unexpected way here, we’re talking about how do you be intentional with your little girls and you’re talking about how you were even intentional with your own relationship with your dad. And you know, in the dads group, I lead out of nine months, at month seven, I say guys, does this feel like a bait and switch? Because we’re now going to talk about your relationship with your dad and you thought this was just going to go one direction, but really it goes both ways and you’re going to be a more awesome dad who’s intentionally invested in fathering, if you’re willing to examine your relationship with your dad and how he’s impacted you both positively and negatively. And if you don’t know what to do, this is not just me trying to market something, but I coach dads, I do zoom now and daughters and say, contact me, write me at drmichelle@thedadwhisperer.com. I’ll walk with you through that. Contact Jeff.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:34:52] Yeah and coaching is so much better than, I mean I always encourage counseling but many of the dads that I work with, they need a coach. A counselor, there’s a step for that, and I’ve been so grateful for my counselor. But coaching is like, it’s forward thinking. It’s like, no, let’s go back into our past, our story and and let’s, let’s let’s see, look what God did and is doing and wants to heal so that we can actually run that whole ready, set, go right?
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:35:14] Yes.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:35:14] Lets be dads who run. We can’t do that if we’re entangled with hurt from the past.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:35:17] Yeah. Carrying that like weight, dead weight. Yep. So I love that you brought that up because that was unexpected, right, of what we’re going to talk about. But so key to, like you said, being lighter, more buoyant, if you will, to be able to step up and step in with your girls. Okay. You and I, when we talked recently when you had me on your show, which by the way, you guys on DadAwesome, Jeff just totally melted my heart by here’s what he titled our interview, Engaging Your Daughters Hearts, Softening Your Own And Taking Action To Be A Hero. And I was like, Jeff, in 14 words like, you summed up my entire message.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:35:55] And that’s only part one. That’s only part one. Part two is still coming out. Look out.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:35:58] So one of the things you told me that day in our interview is that you’re one of your middle daughters, that you realized that you weren’t being as intentional as you needed to be with her. And I so appreciate it, again, you know, to me, you were more awesome because you were aware of where you needed to step in. It wasn’t that you always get it right. And I just thought, could you share more how how that relationship is going?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:25] Yeah, the default for me and I think most dads is to drift towards grumpiness, to drift towards a little bit of an edge in my tone that that’s the default. In the RV one of the air conditioners not working, we’re sweaty, we’re close.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:36:40] The traffic.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:40] Exhausted. Yeah.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:36:42] The near miss that they don’t know.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:44] All these things.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:36:46] Causing you stress.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:46] It’s true. I mean, it was more, it was much more mountainous driving here than I expected as far as the hills. Look out.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:36:50] Yeah. Yeah. It adds to your stress.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:50] This is a beautiful are of the country. It is. So you take all that.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:36:54] Take it out.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:54] My little girls, they don’t know that side. And they don’t deserve any of the grumpiness or the edginess to come to them. But yet I found myself doing that specifically to one of my middle daughters. And I just feel like gentleness is a theme that I want to grow in gentleness, softness.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:37:13] Which is a fruit of the spirit.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:37:15] It is.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:37:15] Isn’t that interesting? Can’t do it on your own.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:37:17] I know. I know.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:37:18] So it is a masculine term or wouldn’t be given…
Jeff Zaugg: [00:37:21] Its true.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:37:21] Right in Ephesians for all of us.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:37:23] True. And and it really comes down to you in my looking, even my height, I’m a tall guy, so am I getting down to her level, is my voice, am I slowing down? So am I low, am I slow, am I looking her like right in the eyes, am I touch a little physical contact? I mean, just last night I missed it though. Actually this is a different story than what I told you on our show. But just last night I was distracted, a few things were going on, laundry was happening, like, there’s a few things that caused me to say, not yet, not yet, not yet. And what my daughter felt was a because I said not yet, and it ended up not happening last night, she and her little mind thought, well, daddy didn’t do what he said he was going to do. He chose other things instead of me. And I was able to put her on my shoulders and take her with me to the laundry. So that little shoulder ride, you know, down to the laundry, it helped bring a little connection back. But she overall, she wanted to play Uno and we never played Uno last night and that that crushed your little heart.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:38:19] Even if she didn’t tell you.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:38:20] So she was asking to play, asking to play, and I was saying, not yet, because I knew there’s a few things I had to do. I hadn’t had dinner yet. There’s a few things, and so I still am feeling like, man, the current chapter is I’ve got a lot of work to do in this area in being gentle. I just brought up my follow through, the am I choosing the greater things? And it’s so crazy how I can, you know, hang out with you and your husband for the first time and show such grace and such intentionality. I’m not looking at my phone. I’m looking you right in the eye, right?
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:38:48] Yeah, Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:38:48] But with my little precious girls, I’ll give the phone or this distraction first place and they get 2nd place or 4th place or 17th place, where I’ll give, it’s not that you’re a stranger, but a new person.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:39:00] Yes.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:39:00] That I might not even see for years in the future. I’ll give away more of me in my heart that I think most of us dads, the same way we give all of ourselves to the stranger and a fraction of ourselves to the little precious gifts.
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: [00:39:13] Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I mean, I want to re-listen to our conversation because you’re saying so many powerful, in the trenches, real life, vulnerable, honest, intentional kind of insight. So thank you, Jeff. Okay. Got one more question. So I end every show with a go step. So I know you’ve shared lots of go action step ideas for dads today. But I just want to ask you right here at the end, you got one or two practical ways that if a dad wants to be more intentional with his daughter to kick up his awesomeness, what would you tell him?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:39:47] I would focus in at the bedtime moments with your kids, with your daughter, with your son, the bedtime moments and the hustle in your heart and the exhaustion in your heart, say set it aside. The hustle, the timeline, the extra 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Like to take the extra moments to look him right in the eyes, a little physical touch to and that could be on the stairs, outside of the room. Could be in their room, could be on their bed with them. It doesn’t matter whatever is right for your child. But to just emphasize this and I know we said this once already, but just to emphasize, I love that I get to be your dad. That statement in that moment of taking the extra time. It actually, I know some doctors or dentists are so good at taking those last moments with with a patient actually speak wonders for the next year until you see them again that you actually feel appreciation those last moments. If we could just do that at bedtime and take with our most precious people that look to us as their superheroes, right. They look, if we can just take the moment and emphasize to them how much we love to be their dad. Thank you so much for joining us this week for episode 290 of DadAwesome. The conversation notes, some of the action steps that I talked about, some of the quotes and the transcripts are all going to be available at dadawesomeorg/290. Guys, this was a little bit different than usual with a mic flip conversation. I’m thankful for you guys. I want to reference back of Ephesians 3:20, the passion translation is what I started with that Scripture is going to be a link to the show notes as well. Guys, I’m praying for you guys. I am praying that God’s power energizes you to bring your full hearts into the dad life and just praying that each of you guys really seize the moments ahead of you this week as these are moments to become DadAwesome. To step in and say, Man, I am pursuing the hearts of my kids. Have a great week, guys.
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14:00 - "I call it the intentional 40. I turned 40 about 14 months ago, and I said, Hey, if I could get more intentional moments with my wife, that would that would be good in so many levels, more intentional moments with my girls, more intentional moments with friends and more intentional moments with mentors. The drift, I want to be a dad, a man, a follower of Jesus who is dreaming and not drifting. And our dreams, often we have to take action to spark bigger dreams, and we have to stretch ourselves and be a little bit vulnerable and do something that's hard."
39:02 - "I'll give away more of me, in my heart, that I think most of us dads, the same way we give all of ourselves to the stranger and a fraction of ourselves to the little precious gifts."
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