357 | Attentive Aliveness, Ranking 1s and 10s, and Doing Internal Renovations (Aaron McHugh: Part 1)
Episode Description
Fatherhood isn’t about choosing between quantity and quality time with your kids. For Aaron McHugh, it’s about being present in your child’s life for the long haul. Through personal stories and thoughtful reflection, Aaron shows how rest, curiosity, and allowing God to shape you can create the meaningful life experiences you want as a man and father.
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Aaron McHugh is a writer, podcaster, adventurer, author, and global leadership coach. He hosts the fast-growing podcast “Work Life Play,” leads Reboot Your Life experiential weekends, and has been married to his wife, Leith, for over 26 years.
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· Prioritizing curiosity, wonder, and exploration in your daily life can transform your overall experience.
· Kids care more about a long follow-through than any short-term bursts of heroism.
· On a scale of 1-10, most of life’s moments fall between a 5 and a 6.2, but you can be intentional to create more 10s.
· If your life experience isn’t what you want, you have to allow God to renovate you from the inside out.
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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.
Aaron McHugh: [00:00:38] So there's a little bit of a mathematical equation in my mind, if I do this, then it'll equal that, a better outcome and an easier road of life. Turns out that was rubbish. But later, what I got to hear from him and continue to now, you know, 29 is how much he references back to those moments of goodness, those investments, the kindness or the choices or Friday mornings getting pancakes together.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:01:07] Hey guys! Welcome back to DadAwesome, today, Episode 357, it's the first half of my conversation with Aaron McHugh. And he's one of those guys that for about three years I have been hearing about through people I respect, people that have been on the podcast and friends of his, mentors of his, mentees of his have said, Hey, Aarom McHugh, have you had him on yet? He wrote the book Fire Your Boss. He wrote the, he leads the podcast in community called Work Life Play. He, it's so funny, he's been so gracious. He shoots me a message back and he's just like, Hey, not yet, but please stay in touch. Hey, not yet, please stay in touch. Which I respect, guys who are purposeful, focused and there's just chapters of life that he doesn't have extra margin. Well, it was worth the wait, guys. About three years later, we made time for the conversation, and there's so much that he shares that I had to break it into two parts. So, today is the first half the setup. Before I jump into it, though, I want you guys to hear from Brian. I've been inviting you, week over week saying I want to hear your voice. I want you guys to share, how has DadAwesome been helpful? What questions do you have? What would you say as encouragement? And Brian was a part of our DadAwesome Accelerator and we actually just graduated the second round of our DadAwesome Accelerator cohort. By the way, side note, if you're interested at all in this six week sprint around all things that we've learned in seven years of DadAwesome, brought into a six week sprint, we're going to offer another probably two cohorts this winter in January. Just simply email awesome@dadawesome.org if you're interested in the DadAwesome Accelerator cohort. But here's what Brian had to say about the ministry in general, but specifically about the DadAwesome Accelerator experience.
Brian McGill: [00:02:53] Brian McGill here, just was in your DadAwesome Accelerator program. And you know, being a traveling RV'er, like yourself, has really challenged me to be a better dad, to connect with other dads, to share experiences, to grow in Christ, and focus on Christ and be a leader to our family and not just to our family but with our children. Program's really stretched that for me and continue the pursuit of Christ as a father, using tips and other things, including our other DadAwesome programs, to truly be a better dad, especially while being on the road. So thank you for all the flexibility that you've done to give us the resources to do so. And you drive and your enthusiasm is so contagious. We are just thankful to be part of this awesome community and movement to move our fatherhood, to become better fathers, husbands, and closer to Christ. Thanks, man.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:41] So thank you, Brian, for leaving a voicemail. Linked in all the show notes, you'll find the link to leave DadAwesome a voicemail. We'd love to hear from you. Up to 90s, we'd love to hear your voice. We'd love to feature you on the podcast. So please send in your voice messages. We'd love to, we'd love to hear from you. All right, let's jump right in. This is the first half of my conversation with Aaron McHugh. Well, as a, as a launching point, Aaron, I thought we'd start here. The, the phrase attentive aliveness. Attentive aliveness. I've read this recently from a poem you released and a reflection on David White. Would you talk about what that phrase means to you?
Aaron McHugh: [00:04:33] Yeah, that's cool. That's fun that you pulled that out. Attentive aliveness, what I noticed, I was describing a hike that we were on. My friend, and then this new friend, poet, David White, and I realized that we had this like, connection. We were in Grand Teton National Park. We were walking around this pedestrian trail. Nothing arduous or too difficult around Jenny Lake. And he is David White, is a zoologist, my training originally. So he spent multiple years in the Galapagos Islands, like in his young 20s. So he had this like particular attentiveness to the flora and fauna. We were reading one of the signs and we were wrapping a corner, and some of Wyoming's oldest known trees were about to come up on us in this grove. So I was just kind of noticing how attentive we were to all the particular things. This view, this light, this flora, fauna, this set of steps, it was a staircase framed and he pulled his camera out. And then there was this aliveness around how we were just interacting together as strangers in that we'd never met before in this particular way. But companionship in the moment as just three guys, you know, loving national parks and mountains and all the things. So it was a cool, I'm glad those two words found me.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:16] I feel like delight is contagious. Like, so if you have a friend whose delight is like taking delight in something, it's like, I want to actually be more interested as well. And that brings me to curiosity and just even running experience or experiments for curiosity. Can you think of like for dads in my phase, my oldest is 11, my youngest is 3, any experiment ideas to help stoke up kind of that attentiveness or curiosity?
Aaron McHugh: [00:06:47] Yeah, I love that, Jeff. I find curiosity, let's say I discovered it, maybe formally, as a practice, when I was a young dad, probably mid-thirties. And my life at the time was, understandably over programs, you know, very I thought of it like shift work. I woke up and it was the first shift at home with family. Second shift at work, third shift back, you know, felt like clocking back in. I would describe my experience of life differently now, but back then, that's what it was like, or at least that was my view of how I was experiencing my life. And curiosity became this rediscovery of wonder, basically, of so much of my life, and the story I told myself at the time, was that life is hard and my job is just to get through it. And I found that incredibly depleting, in addition to the things that were objectively depleting. You know, some of those days are just long, you know, cleaning up dirty diapers and taking out the trash. And, you know, some days at work were challenging. That stuff was difficult already. And then I was making it more difficult, by my way, in which I experienced my life, stories that had on repeat. So when I discovered curiosity as an aperture opening kind of escape hatch to explore alternate realities, essentially. Then all of a sudden I was just laughing to myself recently because I remembered one of the first practices I had is I woke up and I was like, you know what, what if I go fishing before I go to work in the morning? Well for us here in Colorado, where I live, the nearest like proper trout stream is like an hour and 15 minutes away. So I could have done that, but I was like, no, actually, there's this one creek, in the state park, I wonder if there's fish in it. So curiosity took me on this tour. I ended up, what I learned later, was illegally fishing for these Colorado greenbacks and brook trout. And then I would go into these meetings and with fish smell on my hand, I wouldn't smell, I wouldn't wash my hands.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:17] Wait, intentionally, right?
Aaron McHugh: [00:09:18] Intentionally. Yeah. Just kind of have the joyful aroma experience all day long. Yeah. So, that to me was kind of the start of like, Hey, hold on a minute. Wow, you mean, if I actually prioritize curiosity and wonder and exploration in the life I already have, then you mean my life experience might begin to feel differently?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:48] Yeah. You actually were breaking down those walls, those shifts, right? And scent is one of the strongest, I think scent, smells like, like really can trigger deep memories and moments. So you're doing that with the smell of illegally caught fish. I love that. I was going to ask about your goldendoodle. Is it Lulu? Is this right?
Aaron McHugh: [00:10:09] It is. It's true.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:10:10] So we said goodbye to our golden, Goldendoodle 14.5 years, those, we had him, he lived a great life just six months ago. So anytime I learn that a friend has a goldendoodle, I have to ask. But let's take the goldendoodle and faithfulness is what I think of with the golden doodle. Just like happy, happy to see me, happy to stick with me. And I want to go to a Eugene Peterson quote, here's what the quote is, "We live in a culture where image is everything and substance is nothing. We live in a culture where a new beginning is far more attractive than a long follow through." Would you talk about your dog, Lulu, in that quote and again, how it might apply to a dad listening?
Aaron McHugh: [00:10:52] Yeah, what a nice thread to pull on there. Well, Lulu is let's see, she's nine and she is, as you say, deeply faithful. She's, for me, she's like a, yeah, a companion that I'll really, really, really miss one day when she's not here. As you, you're experiencing right now. What, what I love about my relationship with her is that, how accommodating she is to whoever I am that day. And there's a there's a real beauty to that of, yeah, just feeling appreciated, constant companionship and also another kind of playmate for me. And then the reflection that you have there from Eugene Peterson. What I really love about that line is I think it comes from his book Running with the Horses, which is a book that he wrote about the life of Jeremiah, the book Jeremiah in the Scriptures. And what he talked about was this idea of this newness. And for we as humans, being addicted to the new, and the novel, and this maybe just yeah, addiction is by contrast, how a quiet, sustained, faithful long follow through doesn't get near the amount of press. And yet we know in our actual lives, so back to your question about dads, I remember being at a Become Good soil retreat. And, you know, I went to, you know, was part of them for ten plus years. And this one particular guy asked this question and he said, Do you think quality time matters or intentionality with the amount of time I have or something like that? He said it in a clunkier way than that. Essentially what he was asking was, if I go big and take my kids to Disneyland, does that matter more than ice cream on a Tuesday? What was cool is that whoever fielded the question said, Yeah, I love your question. It's not the right one. It's not the right one. Kids are going to care a lot more about a long follow through, then any of the fancy bursts and spurts and, and spats of courageous moments of heroism.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:45] Yeah. And it's so hard in the short term to live into that, and to the non sexy moments of just sticking with them and being the golden doodle and really, of I enjoy being with you today regardless how you show up. Like, it's what I want. I want to talk about 1s and 10s, when I do when one on one's with my, specifically, my eight year old, we write on a placemat at the restaurant, a one through ten, and then she can kind of point to her answers of ranking different things and mostly ridiculousness, but some serious questions. And I, I read something you wrote around 1s being excruciating lows, like 1s describing a low moment to life and a 10s being this exuberant eyes. I can't believe this is my life. And, kind of marker moments that are joyful and tearful and maybe a mix of both, at times. Do you have any, maybe, again, a couple stories, you could pick a 10 or 1 story in the dad life that did shape you, has shaped you that you'd be willing to share with us? So again, either a 10 or a 1 or one of each.
Aaron McHugh: [00:14:57] Yeah, great question, again. A friend of mine is the one who named this idea of 10s and 1s, years ago. And he was speaking specifically to how so much of life is like in the 3 to 7 range, you know, 5 to 6.2, something like that. And he was talking about how, what, kind of a question is, when do you have 10s? What are your 10 moments? Kind of excluding, though, for a minute, we went to Hawaii and we hiked Hilton Head like, okay, that's an easy one. Or, you know, the birth of my child, you know, you fill in the blank. My wedding day. And then so like the 1s, I find everybody has a different version of what a 1 is to them. So for me, the 1s that I would share, so 1s and 10s are helpful for me just to orient that I end up using the same phrase. It just in a very different way. At a 1 I've often said, I can't believe this is my life. And then a 10 said, I can't believe this is my life.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:16] So true.
Aaron McHugh: [00:16:17] It's the same, same words, it's the same words. And it's like one is exclamation and one is giant. Chasm level question, like, dear God, really? How can I make it through this? So for me, a couple 1s and 10s, if I start with a 1, is I remember the day that we, One of my close friends, my son, who was 18 at the time, got in the truck with him to drive from Colorado to Memphis, Tennessee, to start rehab program for drugs and alcohol. And hugging him goodbye, we have these pictures, still, my wife and I, you know, the three of us standing out front in the driveway with them. And it was horrible. It was horrible because we didn't know how it going to go. We didn't know if it would help. All the things. So that picture and that moment and helplessness was definitely a moment of just a 1, like, I can't believe this is my life and I can't believe in hindsight, you know, looking back, it was his life. So a contrast, a 10, I can't believe this is my life. I was just in Barcelona with him, now he's 29, you know, at the time, 18. So he's knocking on ten years sober. And lives in Spain, in Barcelona. And we're at this crest restaurant called Cafe Lobo. And we are there with a sketchpad. And we have these pencils and we're trying to figure out vanishing points. My brother's an architect, and so we were looking at some of the architecture and attempting to replicate the architecture in our drawings over dinner. And it was, he's sober, we're friends, he lives in Spain. It was like, I cannot believe this is my life. And it's all one story. So I would start maybe that, I could go on with many, but that's one that would begin.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:35] Well, a follow up question on that story, and then I think I will ask you for two more, because it's a great way to get to know somebody. If you went back two years before that driveway moment and you were talking to a dad that's in your shoes, so, you know, their son or daughter's midway through high school, maybe in that range. And you could just, like share a few like things I learned along the path. Again, imperfect Dad to another imperfect Dad, but hey, here's some things I learned. That's not like you're going to guarantee that they're not going to be in a driveway with a friend saying, you know, crying with their child as they head off to rehab. But, but it might just be of counsel and help to that dad in the in the high school years, what would you, what would you pass along or what to encourage them with?
Aaron McHugh: [00:19:19] I mean, two things come to mind, Jeff. One is not to, don't underestimate the constant presence of your life in their life, over the long haul. And what I mean by that is there were so many times where shit was sideways and things weren't going well. Drugs and alcohol and sneaking out, and grades and all the cumulative. I felt like none of the contributions I was making in his life we're finding a home, a permanent home. But, they weren't, they weren't landing or they weren't, it's like, are they going anywhere? Is this making any difference? Because I'm intentionally pouring into this human being who's entrusted in my care. And some of that was around, I had a lack of that growing up, so there was a little bit of a mathematical equation in my mind of if I do this, then it'll equal that, a better outcome and, you know, an easier road of life. Turns out that was rubbish for all kinds of reasons. But later, when I got to hear from him and continue to now, you know, 29 is how much he references back to those moments of goodness. Those investments, the kindness or the choices or Friday mornings getting pancakes together, you know, when he was in a carseat, dropping him off, you know, in grade school. So that's really encouraging. So I would offer that as encouragement to you Dad's in the middle of it now, in the thick of it now, is it really does matter and it really does somehow, someway does find a home in them. And to me, it's, it's kind of like the Book of Proverbs. It's in, in real time that wisdom and insight and, and love does indeed matter.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:21:36] Yeah. This next question comes from, and I might be pronouncing wrong, is it, Laozi? Is that, is that, am I pronouncing that right?
Aaron McHugh: [00:21:46] You got it right.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:21:47] Yeah. The wisdom from writing around, be who you really are and go the whole way and, and of course I could of used John 10:10 or other references of like just being all in, but my my daughter's had a chance to play on a 1,000 acre ranch in South Dakota. Well, and these were all brand new friends. We got invited off a church service. They're like, Hey, come to this thing, this cookout. And and they were just gone for hours playing and they came back and as they're like, falling asleep, like on the drive back to the RV, they said, Dad, there were no fences and no rules. And I think like from gathering from your your book, your podcast, your poem that you just wrote, that we'll talk about a little more later, this like bring your full heart, go the whole way. Like, why hold back and live a 7 or a 6 when you could go after the 10? Even if you miss it, right. I'd love for you to encourage Dads to live that out, of course, imperfectly. But then why it's important to give our kids some of these like, let's just go with our whole hearts and not play it safe. Can you kind of reflect on that, those themes?
Aaron McHugh: [00:23:02] Love the no fences, no rules.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:06] Yeah. Yeah. And my wife and I, we still reference back to it, like, like their eyes of wonder of, like, can you believe, like, as far as the eye could see, you can just go as far as we want. It's all good. And they were bleeding. They got themselves cut up, they rolled down. They were like bleeding and joyful.
Aaron McHugh: [00:23:22] And that's kind of fun. Cool. A great imagery. Well, maybe an entry point for your conversation is for each of us as humans, as each of us as Dad and husband and friend and brother and employee and all the contexts we find ourselves in. Whatever is true in us, will be true in the life that we live and in how other people experience us. And what I didn't know early on was that much of my life experience and the way in which I experienced my life was because of who I am and how I am. Maybe quick illustrations stories. And you may have heard the story before yourself, but your listeners may not have is and I tell it as an earnest confession, not as like a shtick. I went to Hawaii, my wife and I, we went for this three week holiday. Three kids and we were in Paradise. No work. There was no teams in Zoom back then, so much so it wasn't even logging in to stuff. And I found or I had a stack of books I brought with me and had this ambition to be the guy who reads in a hammock. And I never cracked one book and I never read in a hammock. And what I found so interesting, I came back and I was with a friend of ours, he was asking me how'd it go? And I was like, you know what? I didn't realize this, but, like, the problem with vacation is I came with me. Like the same overcaffeinated, driven, perfection oriented hot guy. I am here. I was the same guy in Hawaii. And like, how did, how did I possibly do that? I had everything going for me. There was three weeks of just nothing planned. Aloha spirit, flip flops, you know, my was like, how did I possibly miss the opportunity to lay in a hammock and read a book? And it was like, you know what? I'm not someone who values rest. I'm not. Now I am. I wasn't then. So for me, the big learning was hold on, time out, if my life when I start with what I want,the kind of the experience of my life to be, the experience in my family, the nature of the relationships that I have, the work that I do in the world, all of that starts with my inner life. And if, for me, the more space and room I allow for God to renovate me from the inside out, then when I turn up in a thousand acre ranch with barbed wire and cattails, I can really enjoy spacious places way more because I've prioritized becoming a person who can rest, including a person who values play. Becoming a person who values connection over accomplishment. Now, I still wrestle with all these things. They're just kind of hard wired in my, the way I learn to make life work from the beginning. At the same time, I believe all of us are a work in progress and under renovation and there's a lot of hope to have around that. Summer is where I would start, is start less on the externals and start more on the internals.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:39] Thank you so much for joining us for this first half of my conversation with Aaron McHugh. The second half of the conversation's coming out on Thanksgiving Day, so tune back in episode 358. You're going to have the second half of this conversation, including really a special moment where we ask Aaron to read this poem that he's written that I think will punch all of us in the best kind of way it's going to punch us Dads right in the heart. So definitely tune back in on Thanksgiving Day. The show notes, the conversation links, links to Aaron's book and blog and podcasts are all going to be at dadawesome.orgpodcast. Guys, thank you again for sending in these voice messages. We're welcoming, we want to hear your voice. Just look in the show notes for the link that says, Leave a voicemail for DadAwesome. Would love to hear your questions, impact, how was that also been helpful for you or, or if you just want to say a little bit about like this is what the ministry means that we could just share to encourage all of us around our journey, collective journey of being a DadAwesome. So thanks for leaving a voice message and thank you for listening this week. Have a great rest of your week pursuing the hearts of your kids. We'll be back for the second half of this conversation on Thanksgiving Day. Take care, guys.
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· 20:50 - "Those investments, the kindness or the choices or Friday mornings getting pancakes together, when he was in a carseat, dropping him off in grade school. So that's really encouraging. So I would offer that as encouragement to you Dad's in the middle of it now, in the thick of it now, is it really does matter and it really does somehow, someway does find a home in them. And to me, it's kind of like the Book of Proverbs. It's in, in real time that wisdom and insight and love does indeed matter. "
· 26:59 - "Becoming a person who values connection over accomplishment. Now, I still wrestle with all these things. They're just kind of hard wired in my, the way I learn to make life work from the beginning. At the same time, I believe all of us are a work in progress and under renovation and there's a lot of hope to have around that. Summer is where I would start, is start less on the externals and start more on the internals."
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