In this episode, Sam and Cole dive into why physicality and self-defense are crucial components of raising confident, capable kids in 2025. Fresh off their own travels (Cole from three weeks filming a TV show in Texas, Sam from quick trip to the Netherlands), they discuss how maintaining physical readiness impacts everything from mental health to parenting effectiveness.

Key Topics Covered:

• Starting Early: How to introduce physicality to young children through nature exploration, wrestling with dad, and letting kids navigate physical challenges without overreacting to every bump and scrape
• Building Confidence: Why physical skills like jiujitsu or weightlifting create undeniable self-confidence that can't be taken away—unlike achievements that depend on others' approval
• The Jiujitsu Journey: Why both hosts enrolled all their kids in jiujitsu and the life lessons it teaches about winning, losing, discipline, and reality testing
• Self-Defense Reality: The uncomfortable but necessary conversation about being prepared to protect your family in an unpredictable world
• Avoiding Overcorrection: How to support kids emotionally while not coddling them physically—knowing when to step in and when to let them self-regulate
• Leading by Example: Why dads need to maintain their own physicality and what message it sends when you let yourself go

Practical Takeaways:

• Get kids outside in nature early and often (Move Naturally philosophy)
• Make wrestling with dad a regular occurrence
• Don't over-react to minor physical injuries—let kids self-assess
• Consider martial arts training (especially jiujitsu) for pressure-tested skills
• Model physical readiness yourself as a father

Whether you grew up physically active or not, this episode challenges you to think about what you're passing on to your kids and how physicality builds the kind of confidence that translates into every area of life.

There are three words that almost every parent says multiple times a week—sometimes multiple times a day. They're said with pure love and the best intentions. They feel helpful in the moment. And they're quietly teaching your children that their emotions are wrong, shameful, and need to be hidden.

In this eye-opening episode, we expose the single most damaging phrase parents unconsciously use when their kids are hurting, and reveal why our instinct to immediately stop our children's tears is actually setting them up for emotional disaster later in life.

Drawing from 15 years of working with the Grief Recovery Method and helping thousands of people process unresolved trauma, we break down not just these three toxic words, but the four other damaging messages that typically accompany them. By age 15, children receive an estimated 26,000 signals to suppress their emotions. Is it any wonder so many adults don't know how to process grief?

In This Episode You'll discover:

• The exact phrase that invites your child to share more instead of shut down
• Why emotional paraphrasing changes everything (and how to do it naturally)
• The hidden message kids receive when Dad stays stoic
• How to recognize the 40+ life events that cause childhood grief (it's not just death—it's pet loss, moving, betrayal, loss of trust, even finding out Santa isn't real)
• Real scripts for supporting big emotions without being overwhelmed by them

Resources mentioned: "When Children Grieve" book, Grief Recovery Handbook

In this episode, we tackle one of the most critical—and overlooked—skills in fatherhood: telling the truth about yourself emotionally.

Cole shares a heartbreaking story about losing his friend and the regret of never expressing what their friendship meant. This loss shaped how he now approaches relationships—refusing to withhold important messages from the people he cares about, even when it feels awkward or uncomfortable.

What we cover:

• Why "I'm fine" is slowly killing men and destroying relationships
• How emotional isolation contributes to male suicide rates
• The specific skill of staying "emotionally complete" with people
• How to disclose honestly while maintaining boundaries
• Why the toughest people you know are often the most emotionally intelligent
• What you're unknowingly teaching your kids about emotions
• The slow death of marriages and father-child relationships built on surface-level communication

This isn't about being soft—it's about being real. Because your kids don't want a robot for a father, and your wife doesn't want a caricature of masculinity. They want you.