If you’re a dad and you haven’t heard of Jordan Peterson by now, then you may be living under a rock. He is a world renowned speaker, author and just a genius in my opinion. Some people hate him, a lot of people love him. I really don’t care what side of the aisle you fall under because it doesn’t really matter.

What matters is the content of his character (sound familiar) and whether what he says is actually true. Now for me, every time this man speaks, I learn something new. Not only as a man, but as a husband and father as well.

I could jump into a ton of his content and probably talk for hours about it, but I don’t wanna do that to you. Instead, in this episode I wanna share with you 5 quotes that I was recently exposed to from Jordan Peterson that have helped me dial in the dad/leader role within my family, much more effectively.

1. “To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause: that is Hell.”

We as people in general have a tendency to blame others for all of the trials we encounter in life. And I’m not saying that there aren’t circumstances where your suffering isn’t caused by others. If you were sexually or physically abused as a child, you didn’t have a lot to do with causing that to happen. But as you gained understanding of that suffering, and you gained enough control to stop it, whether as an adult or as a teen. There came a point where you could decide to keep being a victim of that suffering or remove yourself from it.

And that internal war that goes on in our mind as men is what I believe this quote has to deal with. It is very hard to come to grips with your failures as a man. To own your mistakes and realize that you really don’t have it altogether. To realize that you might actually be the cause of your suffering is to willfully put yourself through a mental hell. And most men are too scared to go there, so they will fight tooth and nail to stay out.

When my wife and I were on the verge of divorce in just our 2nd year of marriage, it was hard for me to accept that it was on me. I didn’t wanna visit that realization because it was too painful for me to take ownership of it. So I almost ended the suffering by ending my life. By the grace of God, it didn’t go down that way and we were able to come back from that. To now literally being 12 years into this marriage game with 2 beautiful kids and a third on the way. I am madly in love with my wife and she is madly in love with me.

I had to go through hell to get this though. And most great things in life require that of us. If you are suffering in your life right now and you know that you’re the cause of it, and it feels like you’re going through hell, good. Don’t stop there! Like Winston Churchill would say, just keep going. Why would you wanna stay in that place? It is a gift to know that you are the cause of your suffering, because then you have the ability to do something about it.

Most men don’t, but I’m not talking to most men. I’m talking to the men that are willing to go past that hell and come out better men because of it. Those are the men in our society that will shift the current culture of glorifying victimhood. There is no glory in being a victim and willfully remaining there. But there is a whole lot of glory to go around for the man that rises from darkness and becomes a beacon of light for others.

2. “If you fulfill your obligations everyday you don’t need to worry about the future.”

Let me ask you this, do you plan out your day? When you wake up every morning, do you have clarity on what your obligations are for that day or do you just go with the flow reacting to whatever happens that day? Most people don’t have a plan for their day, they just got about their day. If it’s a work day, they’ll go to work, but after they’re home, they’ll kick up their feet and just live out the rest of the day in comfort. TV, gaming, drinking, smoking, whatever the preferred pass time is, the point is there’s nothing happening beyond this and that’s a problem.

For the man that lives life this way, things can become very difficult very quickly. I mean, what happens to this man if he gets laid off from his job? It’s not uncommon, especially in this day and age for this to happen. Your so called job security goes out the window because you’ve done nothing to build another source of income outside of that job. Or you did nothing to acquire new skills outside of that job as a way to safeguard you and your family in case you lost it. So many men, don’t make it a daily obligation to better themselves in every area of life so that they are better prepared for the future.

The man that does his regular job, but also makes it a point to give himself other obligations that help him grow, is not worried about tomorrow. The man that plans out his days with intention and executes is a very powerful man. Think about it, if you workout today, you’ll be healthier tomorrow. If you loved on your family today and gave them memorable experiences, you will have a closer bond with them tomorrow. If you saved or earned a good amount of money today, you will have money for tomorrow.

In other words, do what you gotta do today, so that you’re not stressed about tomorrow.

3. “The way that you make people resilient is by voluntarily exposing them to things they are afraid of and that makes them uncomfortable.”

This one hit me as a dad because it made me realize that I was sort of weakening my kids. You see, I grew up with those hardcore parents that resorted to the belt even if I was breathing wrong. I’d get smacked real quick. It was easy to get a chancla thrown at my head, especially since I was such a saint as a kid. So when my wife an I had kids, I didn’t wanna repeat that in our household. The belts and the constant yelling and all that. So for a while I found myself becoming somewhat of a helicopter parent.

Like trying to keep my kids as extremely safe as possible by not letting them do difficult things on their own. And it started backfiring on us when I started seeing my oldest, Ethan who is 4, start complaining over little things that were hard. Something as simple as putting on his shoes, or his clothes. If he had any struggle at all, he would start whining and crying and almost go into full blown tantrum mode. Not the most enjoyable experience for any of us. Our usual tendency was to give in and just do it for him to make the tantrum stop.

That was not an effective strategy, so we changed it up by not caving in and having him go through the struggle of doing things he found difficult. The more and more we did this, the more independent and confident he became. His resiliency just grew more and more as a result of this. Now, I mean the kid is doing MMA and sometimes it’s hard for him and painful, but he pushes through it. Makes me proud every time I see him conquer something difficult because I know what that’s doing for him internally.

Same goes for us as dads though. We should not be pushing our children to do difficult things if we ourselves are not willing to do difficult and uncomfortable things. It’s not easy to do a hard workout after a long day of work when all you wanna do is just chill on the couch, but if you do it anyway, your resiliency as a man will grow. Can’t tell you how much of an impact that will have on you and those that are always watching you, your kids.

4. “You are important to other people as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world. You are, therefore, morally obliged to take care of yourself. You should take care of, help and be good to yourself the same way you would take care of, help and be good to someone you love and value.”

For the most part, we as men tend to have a very sacrificial attitude when it comes to taking care of the ones we love. Like, we’re willing to risk our lives to save the ones we live and that’s a great attitude to have. It should be a non-negotiable that if it comes down to your family or you, you’re the one that takes the bullet. In a dangerous situation, that absolutely makes sense.

However, what tends to happen with us men is that we carry that self-sacrificial attitude into everything else in our lives at times. Where we purposely put ourselves in dangerous situations without caring about the consequences. When we intoxicate ourselves with alcohol to the point of not being able to function, we’re willfully putting ourselves in unnecessary danger. When we eat like garbage and don’t exercise our bodies, we are willfully putting ourselves in danger of having health issues. When we sacrifice our sleep just to play a video game and wake up feeling like trash the next day, we’re putting ourselves in danger.

As important as it is for us to be willing to die for our families, it’s also extremely important for us to be willing to live for them. And if you’re not taking care of yourself, you may not be around to stand in the way of the dangers that come for your family. That doesn’t just mean your physical health, but also you’re emotional, mental, and spiritual. How do you talk to yourself inside of your mind? Are you encouraging, like you would encourage your son or daughter, or do you beat yourself up mentally? We tend to be a bit more gracious and forgiving with other people, than we are with ourselves.

Yet, what we fail to realize is that in taking care of ourselves, we are also taking care of the people we love the most. You’re not only becoming a fully reliable man because you got your stuff together, but you’re also setting an example for them to follow. So that they can see the importance in taking care of themselves as well.

5. “All the responsibility you abdicate will be taken up by tyrants.”

This one right here though, Good Lord! I have to give credit where credit is due, I was exposed to this quote by a man named Matt Beaudreau who is just a phenomenal leader of men. I have the privilege right now to be involved in an organization he and Tim Kennedy have built called Apogee Strong. Completely life changing stuff and I definitely encourage you all to look it up. I’ll link Matt’s social media handles in the description below if you’re watching on YouTube. Getting back to the quote.

“All the responsibility you abdicate will be taken up by tyrants.” If we take the word abdicate, it means “to give up or renounce especially in a voluntary manner.” So I want you to think about this, every responsibility that you have as a man, a husband, and a father that you give up or renounce, a tyrant will come in and take it from you. If you are married and you fail to fulfill your responsibilities to your wife, such as loving her, devoting quality time, supporting her, and treating her like a queen, somebody else will come in and take that from you. How do you think infidelity enters a marriage? It’s not something that just happens out of the blue.

With your kids, when they come up to you and are seeking your attention. If you ignore them because you have more important things to do, somebody else will come in and take that from you. It could be friends at school. It could be the tv, the iPad or video games. It could be a teacher or a gang in the neighborhood. If you pass that up somebody or something else will take your kids from you. And when you finally get done with that important work you had to do, and you go back to seek their attention, they won’t wanna give it to you.

There’s so many layers to this quote for me and when I first heard it, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. If you are a father, a husband, a man, you have an immense amount of responsibilities. They are not easy to fulfill and so a lot of men just pass them up because they’d rather live a life of comfort. Or they’d rather double down on the things that they’re good at like working overtime to make a few extra bucks or playing more Call of Duty late into the night. Instead of pushing themselves to become better at fulfilling their role as the leader of their home.

Take this quote as a wake up call. A reminder that if you ain’t doing what you’re supposed to do as a man, a father and a husband, you will be choosing to allow tyrants to step in and take over. My question for you is are you gonna let that happen? I sure as hell ain’t, not while I still have breath in my lungs. I will work hard to keep fulfilling my responsibilities as a father and husband because my family deserves that from me. God deserves and demands excellence from me in every area of my life. You men, those that I have been called to serve, deserve that from me. If I give anything less than that, I let the tyrants win. And I personally really hate tyrants.

Until next time my fellow alpha dad,
- G. Vidal