Episode 233 (Bob Lotich) 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 got 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'll give it my all.  Jeff Zaugg [00:00:39] Hey guys, welcome back to DadAWESOME Today Episode 233 I have Bob Lotich joining me. Bob wrote the book Simple Money, Rich Life, and he leaves this SeedTime Organization. So SeedTime Money podcast, he, him and his wife, they actually have reached over 50 million people with financial coaching. And he's going to coach me today in this conversation. It's important for us as dads, this is one of those areas money, money management, budget, stewarding what we've been given. We want to lead well in this area on the home front. And our kids are watching. Our kids are like, how do I relate to money? And I don't think that I figured this out. In fact, my wife is way better at this than I am, but I want to keep learning. So I'm taking Bob up on his three day money challenge. We'll talk about that in the conversation. And I'm glad you guys are joining us today. So let's jump right in episode 233. My conversation with Bob Lotich.  Bob Lotich [00:01:46] I have an eight year old boy, five year old daughter, and then a three year old son. And my lovely wife, we've been married 17 years. I think it is at this point. And we reside in Franklin, Tennessee, just south of Nashville now.  Jeff Zaugg [00:01:59] Amazing. And when you hear the phrase adding life to the dad life, any first thoughts, any like impression of like, oh, it makes me think about this.  Bob Lotich [00:02:09] You know, honestly, like, you know, I don't know what we were talking about before press record, just you being in the RV with your family, touring the country. Like that's what I think of. That's what comes to mind is just kind of being a dad, leading an adventure. Leading your kids on an adventure. Yeah, just chasing after that abundant life that Jesus was talking about. I think that's what comes to mind.  Jeff Zaugg [00:02:33] Cool. When I first heard about SeedTime, your organization like the idea of like interesting like seeds seeding like I actually my first impression of that was like that's what I want to do as a dad, as a seed in my kids seed opportunities seed experiences seed. So when you think about the areas that you want to be planting seeds that you're like, I care about this, I want to put focus. What are some of those? Of course, maybe you'll hit on the topic of finance and money, but what are some of the areas where like these are important areas that I'm seeding right now?  Bob Lotich [00:03:04] I mean, probably similar to a lot of dads listening. I want our kids to be honorable human beings like God honoring people, you know, who just are bold to chase after whatever it is that God has for them. And I think that, you know, so maybe this obedience factor is like if I look back at our life and a lot of the miracles that have happened, a lot of the crazy things that God has brought us on, adventures that He's led us on, it has been through acts of obedience. When he's invited us to do something to step out into something, it's like it's kind of scary. It'd be more comfortable to not do that. Like, I want to be someone who is always running in that direction. You know, you remember David facing Goliath, and David runs to the battle line when everybody else is running away. Like, I want to be one of those people with that much confidence, that much boldness that God is going to do, you know, what he said he's going to do. And I want that same thing for our kids. That's why I'm going here, because I want to raise kids who. Yeah. Who just aren't bound up by fear, but are have that boldness like David did in the face of whatever the obstacle of challenges.  Jeff Zaugg [00:04:12] So as an example of one of those areas could be that you saw your kids having boldness or an area that you actually needed to take an obedient step and be bold. Can you share an example of maybe one or the other?  Bob Lotich [00:04:24] Yeah. So my son, this has kind of been interesting, like tying in through all this, which maybe we'll talk about a little bit. But people keep asking me like, how are you teaching your kids about money? And and assuming that I have it all down, I'm like, No, I don't. I don't. I'm figuring it out as I go. Like, I don't I don't have this down yet, but I'm, I'm trying to figure it out because, again, all kids are different. They all learn differently, you know? And so my eight year old, you know, I feel like we've taught him a lot about money. We've taught him a little about generosity. But I feel like we could have done a much better job, you know, for where we are right now. Like, it's easy to look back and say, we could have done this and this and this. And I mean, this is all parenthood, right? So but within that, it's been really cool to watch is or what I've discovered. We just found this out like a year ago, that every time he goes into kids church and they haven't, they take an offering their kids church and they invite one of the kids to pray over the offering. And apparently our son goes up there every single week and asks to pray for the offering. And one of the kids workers came to us, because we teach a financial class in our church and you know, this is what we do for a living and all this stuff. And they said, Tell me that you're not Bob and Linda's kid, you know, without or tell me you're Bob and Linda's kid without saying your Bob and Linda's kid. And that was the thing that's so fascinating to me, is that he was doing that without us. I didn't teach him to do that. I didn't tell him to go do that. And, you know, and he's not he's a very sociable kid, but he's also not. I've seen him. It's just my point is the boldness factor. There's something there that's rubbed off on him on both fronts. On the boldness factor of being willing to step up on a stage and to talk in front of people, which is something most people are terrified of. And then also just this idea of kind of generosity and whatever, just starting to rub off on him, even though we it was more caught than taught. You know what I mean?  Jeff Zaugg [00:06:10] I love that. And that's a great example of like what all of us want is without nudging and without saying, this is exactly how to do it, to just watch and be able to applaud and say, that's what we're hoping for. But I didn't have a master plan to get my kid to that place. Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's go in a little bit further around that question that you alluded to around helping an eight year old son. You know, my oldest is eight, my daughter and and like just some of the ways that we can be nudging, of course, not with perfection. In fact, just like you said, the guy who coaches others that money and you're like, I don't think I've got this all figured out. Like the guy who leads a podcast called dadAWESOME, I opted I'm like and my wife or reminded me this feels more like dad average dad average would be more accurate than dadAWESOME and how this is going so so but how yeah give me some examples of how maybe you've taken some steps to to guide or nudge your son.  Bob Lotich [00:07:00] Yeah. Well, I think one of the most things because looking back to well, let me start here, I talk to people all the time who come up to me and say, my dad said that we don't talk about money in our house, like intentionally put a wall up and said, we're not going to talk about this. That seems like such a terrible idea to me, because the truth of the matter is, is that if we're not getting financial education from our homes, we're not learning it in school like our churches will teach us about giving in and I think a lot of them do a good job on that, but they're not teaching us how to actually manage our money so that we actually have more to give. And so what happens is we have this void of a lack of financial education. And then there's like this shame thing where it's like, I don't know, but I feel like I should know because everybody should know. And I don't really feel like I have this together. And so then what happens is our education and our beliefs about money come from places that they aren't even trying to teach us about it. But like we're looking at Instagram influencers or learning from credit card companies or all of these places where they may not be explicitly teaching us about money, but it's like the defacto financial education that so many people are receiving. Then they wonder why they're a mess. And it's like in part of this could have been resolved just by our dads not putting up a wall saying we never talk about money in this house, you know. And so with that in mind, I think one of the most important things that we can do is just be willing to talk about it in front of them and and just not hide everything in the closet so that our kids don't grow up and 20 years old out in the world, it's like, all right, figure it out for yourself, you know? And so I grew up in a house and my parents know talked about it a little bit, but I don't feel like I had a super thorough financial education or anything. But but that's what I'm trying to do. Like, how can I talk to Linda and, you know, not give all the specific details of what I can tell my eight year old everything. He's not ready yet. But but to have some of these conversations of of our decision making with spending or us choosing to give in this particular area, you know, because we had something just a couple weeks ago where we felt led to give like $500 to this person and just talking through that in earshot of them, because, again, a lot of this is more caught than taught. And so we might as well just let them hear what's going on and let it start rubbing off on them. And I think that's one of the best things that we can do as dads.  Jeff Zaugg [00:09:13] Wow. So that your answer is not get three jars and start doing percentages, your answer is is way more just be intentional as a dad and with your spouse if you're married within earshot. Am I hearing that right?  Bob Lotich [00:09:27] Yeah. And I'd like to go there because I don't think that's a bad idea. And, you know, and we are doing some of that stuff, but and I don't know if you feel the same way, Jeff, but I feel like if I look back on what I learned from my parents, so much of it wasn't the thing, you have to do this. This is the right way to do it. You have to do this. It was the stuff that I watched them do and I saw from, you know, the cause and effect. And some of that was I saw that and that. And so I don't want that. Some of it was I saw that and then that happened. It's like, okay, yeah, I get that. Like, that's, that's beneficial. So I'm not against the jar thing. I'm not against 80, 10, 10. I think that's a good kind of framework. But if that's all that we leave our kids with, I don't think that's enough to sustain them for the rest of their lives, you know? I mean, for sure.  Jeff Zaugg [00:10:10] For sure. Let's go back to adventure for a moment. And I yeah, I don't know the story, but I know that you took a step out on an adventure and took a year off of work at some point. Yeah. And a lot of guys listening, you're like, Tell me the story. Because it's possible. I'm sure it's possible somehow, but it not for me. Is it possible for for us listening to take a year off and why and what what brought that about?  Bob Lotich [00:10:35] Okay. So I'm going to take you back a little bit because there's a little backstory here. But long story short, on this first part, my wife and I have been taking a one month sabbatical every year for the last 10 or 11 years. And before that, we did a one week sabbatical where I like stepped away from all work, no email, whatever else like that. That first week, like I was terrified my business was going to be gone when it came back. Like, I'm stepping away. It's going to blow up overnight. Google's not going to send us any traffic like our entire business is going to be gone. And so but God led me to do that one week. That was and this is how God works so often. It's like he starts small. This is why our website's called Seed Time, you know, it's like he starts with these smaller things. Everything God does seems to always start with the small seed. So so we started that one week after we did that. The next day he called me to take a month off. And so I took an entire month off, didn't check email, I just stayed away from everything super again, terrified the business was going to be gone when I got back. But it was a great exercise in delegation and learning how to build a system, a business that didn't depend on me being there every day, which I think a lot of business owners, even if you can't take that much time off, would benefit from going through the exercise of structuring your business in a way where you're not so dependent on you being there. But anyway, after that first month, they took that and I'm like this, this impacted my life so much. I want to do this every single year. God, if you can let me do this every single year, I want to do this every single year. So from that point, every single year, I think maybe one year we had a baby and we didn't. But in general, the last ten years we've done that every single February. So coming to 2017, we took that month off in February. Going into 2016, I was super burned out. I just. It was a very challenging year for a lot of reasons, and I was burned out emotionally, physically, spiritually, like everything. I just burned out. So we go on this one month sabbatical in the beginning of 2017, and at the end of it I'm just not really feeling done and which is really weird. And I know anybody listening is like a month off work and you didn't feel like that was enough. I know it's insane. It sounds insane and I get that. But I'm just saying, like, it didn't heal my soul. It didn't fix whatever the burnt-out-ness. And and so we got, we normally go out of town for a month and we came back and I said, Hon, I got to take another week. I just don't feel like I, I don't feel like I'm ready yet. And so I take another week. I go to my office, I had an office outside of the house and I had written on my little whiteboard sabbatical. That was my month goal for checklist is just a sabbatical. Yes, I was looking at it and I don't know why of this thing with spelling, but I'm like I looked at him like, that looks like it's spelled wrong. So I just googled it sabbatical and it leads me to this Wikipedia entry. And so I'm reading about it and as I'm reading the definition of sabbatical, like on Wikipedia or whatever goes on to say that technically a sabbatical is a one year thing. And that was like the first hint where like God, like shined a light on that. Like you like pay attention to this. And now I'm like, Oh, that's really interesting. And so then like through a little more study, I'm reading the book or I think it was Leviticus 20 or 25, I'm not sure with the chapter of God kind of led me down this journey of taking off the entire rest of the year, basically with no preparation and it was so cool about it, is that he had given Linda a heads up a couple of weeks prior. She didn't tell me anything about it, and that's what's so sweet about it, because I went to her with this idea. I'm like, You're going to think I'm absolutely crazy, but I kind of feel like I should take the whole year she was like, "nope", I already knew it was coming. Wow. So, so that's how we got there. But Jeff, it was so yeah. I want to tell you just a couple more things about it, because it's so amazing how God kind of orchestrated all this. So in November of 16 or something like four or five months earlier, we had signed up with an adoption agency looking to adopt and in the agency told us like they were very well-planned out, meticulous in how they did things. And they pretty much said, like all of our birth mothers come in and about the four or five month window about that point. So you will have about four or five months heads up before you know you're going to a baby, basically. And so we kind of thought that. And so one month goes by, we don't hear anything. Two months, three months, four months go by. We haven't heard anything from them. And and it's like it just like falls to the back of your brain, all of that. Were you just not thinking about it much? So what's really interesting is two weeks after I agreed to God to do this, because this was you know, some people were like, yes, I would love to take a year off. But like, I'm I'm someone who really likes to work. This was a major, major submission in yielding to God on this thing. But anyway, so it was two weeks later after I said yes to God and decided, okay, I'm going to take the rest as a year off. We got a call from the adoption agency and they said, I know normally, like, you know, we give you a 4-5, 4-5 month heads up, but we actually have a little girl who was born last night down in Alabama. And so if you're interested and so Linda and I prayed for about 30 seconds, you know, like, all right, let's go get our daughter. And so it was absolutely amazing because, you know, like when you do that, when you adopt out of state, like you have to stay in the the other state for ten days before you can come back. Like, there's all kinds of stuff to do with that. And my schedule that I had built up for the first quarter and the second quarter was so insane that had I not taken a sabbatical, like I have no idea if it could even happened. And so God's just so smart in his timing and how he orchestrate all this stuff. But yeah, it was a crazy adventure for sure.  Jeff Zaugg [00:16:17] Wow. And now that little your daughter is is how old is she?  Bob Lotich [00:16:21] She's three. No, she's five. She's five. My son's five and three. Yeah.  Jeff Zaugg [00:16:25] Are your other children adopted as well?  Bob Lotich [00:16:28] So yeah, our first two are adopted. Yeah. And then our latest one is the old fashioned way.  Jeff Zaugg [00:16:35] It's beautiful, though, man. What a beautiful story. And how God set up the miracle with the margin to handle the miracle, right?  Bob Lotich [00:16:43] No, exactly.  Jeff Zaugg [00:16:45] And I mean, that phrase just kind of slipped out. But I think it does apply to some other areas that you really help, help with, which is, you know, do we as dads, are we taking leadership with our money in a way that we have the margin to handle the miracles that he has or are we complaining our way right through and maybe missing all of God's goodness or many of God's good moments? Yeah. I'd love to hear just a little more of your heart for why. Why Seed Time? You know why the book? Why, like, why have you invested? The last couple of decades in this in this area.  Bob Lotich [00:17:17] Yeah. So my wife and I were complete financial messes when we first got married, we brought in tons of debt to each other. We just were messes that's just what it came down to. We just didn't know what to do. And to be honest, I was pretty arrogant. I think I've read studies where they at the average American, I think it's like 80% of Americans say that they're good with money. And I was definitely one of those and I was a complete mess. I think the reality is that most Americans are probably not as good with money as they think. And and so that was me for sure. And I had some pride or it's like I got this money thing figured out. I don't need any help. And so God kind of got me to a breaking point. You know, however I got there, I got to the breaking point and God kind of showed me, hey, I got the answer, you know? So out of that breaking point, I got cried out for wisdom. And I said, God, if you have a better way than what I've been doing, like, I want to hear that, you know, because my wife and I had from when we were dating in, when we were both, you know, barely making minimum wage incomes. Like we had dreams to be able to give away millions of dollars and it made absolutely no sense because it's like, you know, when you're making, whatever, $12 an hour, like, how are you ever going to give away millions of dollars? Makes no sense. But. But God. And place it in our hearts and you know, and the reality of coming to to be able to reach that, the fruition of that in which we're on our journey of getting there, you know. You know, there's there's a miraculous side of God doing a work in our financial life. But there's also things that we need to do you know what I mean? I guess and I always say this, but like, God can't keep you from being in debt, you know, because there's so many people that are just praying for God to make their debt go away. And God can do that. You know, He can whenever have miraculous get money in your hands to make that go go away. But he can't keep you out of debt. Like, we all have free will. And so no matter what he does, we can always get ourselves back into debt. And so anyway, so like that was a big aha that I had because for a long time I was just praying for God, just send money down and just solve my problem. But when He really needed do things in me and help me and change my heart posture towards money and helped me to actually instill some some of what the Proverbs talking about, like with actual wisdom, with managing money and handling money. And in that combination of those things of applying a lot of this biblical wisdom that's been there, like a lot of common sense stuff that we all know about, a lot of us don't do applying that with the let's believe for God to do the miraculous in our finances so that we can impact the world around us. You know, like I've never been one who's like, I just want to have millions of dollars, just have millions of dollars, but I won't have millions of dollars to be able to give an impact the world around me. You know what I mean, to change the world? Like, why not? You know what I mean, like, it offends me that if you look at the Forbes 400, like the vast majority of the people, that top of the list, they're not serving the kingdom. It's like, that's why not. Why not?  Jeff Zaugg [00:20:08] Mm. Well, I want to go into this John Wesley quote in a little bit framework just to talk about it. But as a setup to that, we have a four part framework, a four part fatherhood framework that is called adding life to the Dad life spells life real simply. I am loved as the identity piece. I am loved, I am intentional, which we always talk about money within that piece of intentionality with time, money, resources, mentorship, friendships. I am, three is the third part. So I, I am loved, I am intentional, I am free is like, man, we don't want to pass on baggage and hurt and pain to our kids that maybe we're caring. So God has invited us to live in freedom and then I enjoy my kids. Is the E of the life framework. Pleasure, that man, if we can show our kids, it's the favorite thing that I get to be their dad. I love being their dad. I enjoy them. I take great pleasure that I get to be their dad. So that's the life framework on our side. The reason I share that to set it up is there's some overlap with your passions and this John Wesley quote, but would you walk us through a little bit of the framework that you have?  Bob Lotich [00:21:13] Yeah, so. Yes. There's a really interesting just interesting story of how this came together. But my wife and I, Linda, have this Wesley quote has been something that just stuck with us for a long, long time. And we've kind of been following it for a while. And as we were writing this book, like, I think this makes sense to kind of build the book out around this framework. But the gist of it is this and John wrote about this a lot, and I'll break it into the modern English version, just so super clear and easy. But he said, I make all that I can, you know, by writing and by speaking and everything that he was doing. And fun fact about John whenever he was preaching, I think the 17th or 18th century or something, maybe 19th, he was one of the wealthiest people in all of England in terms of salaries and the income that he was earning, which is so interesting because he's a preacher way back then and there's so many people who were like, why would a preacher be trying to make so much money? But I'll get to that. So he said, I earn as much as I can by writing and speaking. And he was I mean, the miles that he racked up on horseback like it was insane. So that was first part. The second part was, I save what he said. And what he meant by that was I reduce my expenses, I eliminate waste. I just cut out any wasteful, unnecessary spending. I do as much of that as I can. I save as much as I can so that I can give as much as I possibly can. And so he had this understanding that he could use his talents to actually change people's lives by speaking in writing while earning an income. And then that income could do double duty and then be given to help other people. And so I think that's so something that so many of us miss is that the talents that God has put into us, it's it's like, yes, it's it's something there that we can also we can help people with it with whatever the work that we're doing that we're called to do. But then also we can earn that income and then that can be used for someone else as well. Of course, we need to take care of our families. That's the super big part of it. But but not all of it has to be for us. And I think especially when we believe that God can help us to grow in our work and we develop the talents that He's given us, you know, increased income follows that. So anyway, so those are first three parts. And then out of that, like Linda and I kind of added our own piece to this, which is the enjoy part, which overlaps with that you're saying. Because I believe that, well for me personally, like I had so many years where I hated the work that I did, I hated going to work every day. I was stuck in a job I wasn't good at. And I felt trapped and. Yeah, I know the pain of that. It's really, really challenging. And so I had do that for a long time. A lot of people, me for many years hated saving money or like not spending it all because spending it all seems to be the most fun thing. So I hated that. And then a lot of people hate giving like, you know, and many years of just not understanding giving and really, really did not enjoy it. And I believe that we can enjoy all three of those. And I think when we're doing that in balance, there's a really balanced and healthy life that we can be living financially, where we're not lusting after money, where it's not the God that we're chasing after, but where we can also enjoy the fruit of our labor, where we can enjoy giving and, you know, changing the world through our dollars and keeping putting people into heaven rather than having them go to hell. There's a lot there. And so anyway, so that's how the four part framework of the book kind of came to be.  Jeff Zaugg [00:24:32] And gamification I haven't heard this directly from you, Bob, but I feel this where if you can gamify like making more money and really it can be that fun to make more money. You can gamify the minimalism side of like what's, what's actually bringing the most like, like impact. And in gamified there's gamified giving like where you really are like this is fun to give and including our kids in that process. And so would you just elaborate a little at your thoughts on the a, a light gamification approach, which is quantifying gamifying is, is like actually keeping careful track of yeah, but you add a little of that.  Bob Lotich [00:25:11] Yeah. So it's interesting because I haven't thought of it in those terms, but, but we do a couple of things in the book we talk about that are exactly that. So the first one is tracking your net worth, which is a really important it's one number. They clearly tell us whether you're going forwards or backwards financially. Sure. It's not just for the rich people. It's not just for people at cocktail parties to talk about. But we took another spin on it. We actually call it are AUM, or Assets Under Management instead of net worth for two quick reasons. I don't, I don't like the term net worth when we're talking about our worth as believers, like in light of what Jesus did, there's no number that defines that, whether it's high or low. And so I think that's silly. But the other reason we call it Assets Under Management is that it's a reminder, a constant reminder for us that everything that we have our house, our cars, the money in our account, our kids like any of it, it's we're managers of all of it. We're not the owners. And so just having this when I see this Assets Under Management as a title and then my bank accounts and my investments listed under, is this a reminder to me that like God has entrusted me with this to use and to grow for His glory, for his purposes, it's not mine. I need to get my grubby little fingers off. You know, it's not about me. But that simple thing of tracking that and attempting to grow what I am responsible for very much reminds me of Matthew 25 and the parable of the Talents. So like we're not just taking what he's entrust us with more bear bearing it, not doing anything with it. We're taking calculated risks on how to grow and utilize our talent, that He's entrusted us with, to make more, you know? And so that's the first way. And then the other thing that we do in terms of giving like since giving is our our top priority for us personally. We've done the same thing with that because I kept on like, you know, so like we just talk about tracking or AUM, that's super important and super valuable, but the giving is even higher value to me. And what's contradictory about that, it's seems, is that as you're tracking your AUM, then you give you are you're going down. You know, I just gave away $5,000. It's like, all right, now you're $5,000 less. And so I struggle with that because I'm a numbers guy and I love this gamification idea, and I struggled with that for many years. And finally, one day I was praying. I felt like God said, why don't you just track your giving? And so we created what we call our net given, which is basically just a sheet where we have tracked pretty much everything we've given since we got married. It was so cool about it is that we get to see this running total. We're chasing a number that actually has eternal significance, that actually is affecting everyone else and benefiting the whole world by us growing this number. And from a gamification standpoint, like, it's been really, really fun. And so Lynn and I, you know, and it's it's not a brag to other people or anything like that or to give ourselves like a pat on the back, you know. But it's we've had fun giving each other high five over certain milestones, just watching what God has done throughout this journey. I mean, I love that.  Jeff Zaugg [00:28:03] And we have those numbers from our tax statements, but I've never added them up to know how much we've given. So we've had a lot of fun celebrating year by year giving, but not our total. So I'm inspired by that. I have an action step.  Bob Lotich [00:28:16] Okay. So another thing I would add to that, though, is, yes, take all the stuff on your tax statements, but most people are giving beyond that. They're giving above and beyond that. So if we throw a birthday party for someone and we spend $200, like we're going to add that to the list. If I take someone out to dinner, we're going to add that to the list. Like a lot of things that aren't tax deductible, you know, I mean, it's not the IRS might say giving is only that which is tax deductible, but as believers, that's not the case. And so there's a lot of things that a lot of us have been giving that we haven't even thought about it. You know, and you can take this to another extreme beyond money like volunteer. And, you know, I mean, like volunteering and the hours you spent doing something like there's so many different ways to do this and people can run with it any direction they want. But we've just found this to be incredibly empowering and exciting. And and I think most people would be surprised. I think if anybody's giving on any sort of regular basis, I think you'd be surprised how much you've given. If you could tally it up.  Jeff Zaugg [00:29:08] Thank you for that encouragement. And that's I love this concept. I want to just end our time with being turn you into my counselor for a second so, you know, I might as well. I got you on the call here, Bob.  Bob Lotich [00:29:19] I'll do my best.  Jeff Zaugg [00:29:20] So the first probably 13 years of our marriage with Michelle and I, we tons of stress, tons of arguments around money where I played the lead role of keep it organized, keep accountable, do the budget and played a little bit of a controlling role of like I was responsible for where we allocated our, our money. Well the last three years I that's been handed, thank the Lord, to my wife has taken that control she's just she manages and keeps track of and sorts and understands the budgeting software. And I actually, though, have a little bit of one, those fights are all God and we're doing great. So I'm super thankful, but I actually have have not even thought about it like so I've almost gone passive in that area. I wanted you to just coach, counsel me to like, why is it important to not go passive even though I can celebrate my wife's managing it and stewarding well what we have? Any just thoughts or coaching for me?  Bob Lotich [00:30:17] Yes, that's really interesting because I do talk to couples from time to time who make that switch at a certain point in their marriage. And so that's really interesting. But Linda was very much like, oh, I was like you now, I've maintained the role that I've had the whole time in our marriage. But but I'm the one who's always just kind of been in control, and she's the one who's kind of run out and spend all of our money. And so so we definitely had our fair share of fights and bumping heads and everything like that. But so I get that part of it. But what I would say is we started moving forward faster when both of us were in it together, when both of us were aware of what was going on. It's like, it's okay, the your wife is leading it. But yes, there's no doubt there's going to be value to you knowing what's going on, just being part of the discussions, even if it's like a quarter, even a quarterly, kind of let's just take a half an hour and talk about money, talk about our goals, talk about what we want to do this year, just so you have a pulse on what's going on because yes, it's like and I understand the temptation not to do that because because it's working or it feels like it's working. But my hunch is that it would work even better. Things would move even further if you guys were having regular conversations just about the money situation. And I don't even think it has to be monthly. I don't think it would hurt to be monthly, but I think you do it quarterly and just some sort of check in and I think that'll be really helpful.  Jeff Zaugg [00:31:43] Well, thanks for the encouragement slash challenge. Now your book, Simple Money, Rich Life. I'm going to link it in the show notes, Seed Time, your podcast, online courses, so many resources. It will be helpful for the dads listening. Anything that you would want to just tee up of like Hey, start here or this might be helpful for for the dads listening.  Bob Lotich [00:32:01] Yeah. So one thing that I think is a great starting point we actually created, I pulled out there's a lot of. So this book is full of there's a lot of principal stuff in mindset, stuff that will challenge you. But there's also a very, very specific tactical do this right now. Go sign up for this app right now like super simple, actionable items in it. And so we pulled out three of what I think are the most valuable things in the entire book. We created a three day money challenge, or somebody can just go sign up for that and get those three things. And it's a great way to just kind of test drive it. If you like it, then you check out the rest of the book and if you don't like, it's completely free and it'll help you either way know. But it's just a threedaymoneychallenge.com. You just go to that website, sign up and we'll send you these three things. And I promise it's going to help you.  Jeff Zaugg [00:32:50] We'll send everybody to that. That's great. I'll commit over over the podcast that I'm going to do the three day money challenge. So there you go.  Bob Lotich [00:32:56] Let me know how it goes. Yeah.  Jeff Zaugg [00:32:58] Well, Bob, would you say a short prayer for all of us listening now?  Bob Lotich [00:33:01] Yeah, absolutely. God, I just pray that you'd move on each and every dad, or if there's any moms listening, anyone listening right now. Lord, I pray that you'd move on their hearts. Help them to understand, help them to get a clear picture and understanding of the role that money is to play in our life. How it is not supposed to be in our heart. It's not supposed to be something that we're chasing after. But it is a tool that we can use for your glory and for your purposes and really to fulfill the thing you put us on this earth to do and help us to understand that, help us to get a hold of it. And I pray that you just bless the financial situation of each and every person listening, whatever their situations like. If they're encountering some really tough challenges right now. I just. Minister Yeah, I just speak healing and health over those really challenging financial situations that some people might be in. And I pray that you do Lord in those situations, only what you can do. And I've seen you do it so many times. And so I pray you would do the miraculous. I pray you do the Ephesians 3:20 thing God exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond all they can ask, think or imagine. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.  Jeff Zaugg [00:34:09] Thank you so much for joining us today for Episode 233 with Bob Lotich. All the conversation notes, the links to his book, his podcast, that three day money challenge. All of those resources are going to be at dadAWESOME.org/233. Guys, it's a big deal that you listen today. We're thankful to have you join in and say, Man, I want to be dadAWESOME for my kids. Listening matters, continuing to learning grow matters, continuing to get down on the level of our kids, look them in the eyes and say, I love being your dad. That is the pathway of being dadAWESOME. And one of the practical takeaways from this conversation is just man what if we just talk more openly about decisions, prayerful decisions for how we use our money, how we give money away, how we steward, how we save in within reach of our kids ears because they're listening to how we relate on this topic and how we lean in with intentionality. So that's one just action step for all of us today. Thanks again for listening. Let's go add some LIFE to the dad life this week.