SPEAKER_00 0:01

I have a scrapbook of photos that I put together of my family before my mom and dad got divorced. I printed out this Google photo book for my mom. You know what you told me, Rich? I can't really look at it. I know you look at those pictures of when you and your brother were young and you're happy, and you think that's when me and your father were happy. But in every one of those pictures, I was suffering. In every one of those pictures, I was miserable. When I look at those pictures, all I could think about was how I was wasting my life and I wasn't happy. Failures Podcast. Today we're talking about father influence and the conflict that comes with being in a blended family. The difference between a stepfather and your biological father. And what happens when families start getting mixed up because you have a stepfather, a stepmother, stepbrothers, your mother's single, she's dating, you're meeting new people. What is all this about? Well, Rich and I, in our preparation for this episode, found out one insanely valuable stat. 45% of families in 2026 are blended. This is no longer a small group of people going through this. Blended families now represent a massive portion of the population. That means 40% of people are in a family that is not the original parent, original mother, original father, original brother, original sister. One in three Americans have at least one step relationship. So, Rich, I think we actually stumbled upon a good topic of conversation by going through our own personal issues. And this all started with the father wound. It was an episode that was really successful for us. A lot of young men we found out were dealing with issues of not necessarily having a father figure at home. And there's many scenarios. There's not having your actual father, your father not being present, and then you having a father that may work too much or is just not around, and you're being raised by uncles or other people, uh school teachers. So we decided to go a little bit further and we stumbled on this topic, which we both related to because my situation is a blended family, Rich. Your situation growing up was a blended family. And the current situation you're in is basically a blended family. Since we both come from backgrounds that are families that are not typical, the nuclear mom and dad white picket fence family. If you do not come from a family that is a mom and dad white picket fence, then stick around. This episode is for you. Rich, as someone who has kids, what are the moments that you're most afraid of missing because you're in a blended family and you think it'll affect them in the long term and you have some trouble dealing with?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Man, just it's not only one moment. It's every weekday, right? I miss all of school drop-off pickup. I miss the nuances of just normal day-to-day operations, like making my son some lunch, right? Something as simple as that, or cooking him dinner. Like I'm not there Monday through Thursday throughout the week. So I feel like I miss a lot of important moments. And man, this is something that I've struggled with because for a long time I've really considered myself a part-time dad. And that little phrase part-time dad hurt me so much because I've always wanted to be present in my son's life. And I never wanted to feel like I wasn't giving everything I possibly could to my son as far as my time. And when I really conceptualize the time that I do have with him, which is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I'm like, damn, I'm a part-time dad. And that's just something that unfortunately I've had to adjust to and reframe my mind to not necessarily view that as a negative, but more as a positive and understanding that this is the dynamic that I'm currently in when it comes to being part of a blended family.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Rich, I'm glad you spoke to that one immediately because there's three buzzwords that came up a lot when we were preparing for this show. And I was raised by a stepfather. And obviously, you and your baby's mother didn't necessarily figure it out because you had a kid young, and that's normal. Obviously, that stat that we said earlier, I think it makes everything feel a little less crazy, right? When you start thinking about it. When you hear 45% of families are blended families, meaning that the original mom and dad didn't work out. So you have to plug and play grandma, you have to plug and play grandpa, you have to bring uh other cousins to help raise your family. And it made me feel less alone when I read that stat. But the three phrases that kept coming up were co-parenting, part-time parenting, the man who stayed versus the man who left and raising someone else's child. So my question to you, Rich, is when you hear those words, I know it it must trigger you in a way that is an open wound of your own because you have your own issues that you've unpacked here about your own father. So I'm sure there's some sort of correlation in discussing what we're discussing today and what you've been going through with your own father wound.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Yeah, certainly. I mean, when I think back at my childhood and growing up without a father, I always knew what I wanted for myself, which was to be in a traditional union marriage with the love of my life, have children, white picket fence, et cetera, right? So when it didn't turn out like that for me, I almost felt like I was going down the same family cycle that I came from. And that really, you know, bothered me. And ironically enough, when I saw Drake, Aubrey Graham, go through his relationship and him having sort of a child out of wedlock, I'm like, oh shit, like shit, even celebrities uh make these type of mistakes. 100%, bro. And not a mistake in the sense of having the child, but just a mistake in having a child out of wedlock, right? Like I think the ideal scenario for everyone is to marry the love of your life, have a traditional family, and live a fruitful life. And when it doesn't pan out that way, and you know, you have to go through divorce and you create a whole separate family, and your ex creates a whole separate family, and now you have co-parenting relationships, blended families, two different styles of raising your child, two different ideologies, two different cultures, potentially, right? There's all these nuances that the child has to adjust to and grow up with and figure out what advice he wants to get from mom or dad or stepdad or stepmom. Like it's a very complex issue, just and I'm excited that we're talking about this because there's a lot of feelings when it comes to blended families, right? Like there's egos from the father, there's replacement resentment from the child, right? Because they feel like the stepdad is replacing the father. There's kids who are forced to feel like I need to like this person whom my mom is currently with now, which also brings a completely new dynamic to the family that you are currently with. So there's a lot to unpack here.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

The one that I want to address off top, because I was affected by this growing up, and I think I don't want to isolate our younger audience, even though I do think this episode can be helpful and liberating to grown-ass men or young men that are just started living in a family where their mother decided to remarry or date a new guy, or you're an older guy that was raised by a stepfather and you're still very conflicted by it. I fall into the latter for sure. Like if I think about my situation, my father raised me until I was about 13, 14 years old. And what he represented to me at that moment was my everything. I was a young man growing up in an inner city, and being a strong alpha male was something very valuable, not because of the words that are said and how men think they should behave, but when you grow up in the hood, you need that tough exterior. You actually need some sort of role model or somebody that you could look at that can help you navigate the streets. Because we've said this before in previous episodes, Rich. If your father's not around to help raise you and you grow up in an inner city, what winds up happening is the streets wind up raising your kids. The hood winds up raising your kids. And if you're a parent that's not paying attention or you're a parent that's working two to three jobs to pay for your kids to get through life, it's likely that your kid's gonna wind up in a gang or somewhere where he's being loved and accepted by older men that make him feel like he's a part of something. So I'd be lying if I were to say, oh yeah, my father wasn't around for that. Because my father was the guy in the streets that was outside doing what he had to do. And in some weird way, I think he pushed me away from the streets. He protected me from that. And all I ever wanted was his validation. All I ever wanted was him to see me. I wanted to be a part of his world. And something strange happened when I was a young teenager, and him and my mom just broke up, and my father wound up going through a whole bunch of shit. And I was just kind of left on an island. It was just me and my mom. And my life changed really quickly. My brother, who was seven years older than me, he was probably 20-something when my dad left. So he got to be raised completely by my father. And two years later, my mother decided to enter a new relationship with a new guy. And it fucked me up because I know who my father is. And my father was very much alive. I have hundreds of pictures of me and my pops. So for a new man to enter my life and play the role of somebody that's going to be my father figure, I had crazy conflict in my life because my dad went from being around to not being around at all. And I don't know. I never got his side of the story. But it bothered me a lot that he was never around. And this new man came out of nowhere. And shout out to my steppops, who was a great human being. And as a 40-year-old man, I could look back and say, damn, I don't know what my life would be if my stepfather didn't force me to love him because the first few years are rough. But the first subject I want to get into, Rich, and I think even your son currently could be going through this, or you might have gone through it, being that your mom was in and out of relationships after, you know, you grew up without a father. There's a conflict that comes with the loyalty between the guy who birthed you and the loyalty of a new man entering your life that he hasn't really done anything wrong. He's just trying to help you and he wants to be with your mother. Listen, he didn't choose you. Your stepfather didn't choose you. He chose your mom. He's trying to blow your mom's back out. So in the mix of him trying to swoon your mother, your mother was just like, Oh, I got a son. I got a few sons. If you want me, you got to take care of these kids too. And you know what? Some men just take the deal that comes with it, Rich. And I know we've both been there before. So I want to talk about the loyalty factor for a young man that's conflicted between the loyalty they have to their biological father and the resentment that they may feel for a new man in their life. Have you ever experienced this? And then I want to know as a father that has a mixed family, a blended family, do you see some of that?

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Yeah, just I mean, listen, when it comes to having your stepfather enter the family dynamic, right? There's a lot of different feelings that you might feel as a young man. I think certainly the age that you're in when the stepfather does enter the family dynamic is important because if you're two or three years old, you don't really understand what's happening. But if you're somebody a little bit older, 14, 15, and you had your father around for the latter half of your life, you see the family dynamic changing in almost real time. And it's a lot of questions of insecurity. You get anxiety, right? Because the family routine is changing, the dynamic is changing, and essentially a stranger's entering your life that you haven't cultivated a relationship with yet. So there's a lot of feelings and emotion tied to this adjustment. And I think as a young man, what you need to sort of understand is that this person, in most circumstances, is not here to harm you. This person is not a negative figure in your life. They clearly love your mom to the point where he understands that you are a package deal, right? And he's going to be involved in your life. And I think somebody who makes the conscious decision to be a stepfather, they've already chosen you, right? Period. Right? Like they're not forced to like you or forced to cultivate a relationship with you. If they chose your mom and he understands that you come with her and you guys are a package deal, he's already chosen to be part of your life. It's just a matter of you understanding that, you know, there's some growing pains in this relationship, and you're gonna have to make some adjustments on how you view the relationship and the family dynamic going forward.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

I could almost tell that you have a lot of experience either explaining this situation or you've probably thought about it a lot given the situation that your current family is in. Because if we really dissected this episode, I don't have enough experience to speak of it from a father, an actual father that has a child that is in a co-parenting situation, or you being the stepfather, someone that's entering a relationship with someone that has a kid already. What you're saying feels so well thought out, and I have to assume that comes from experience.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yeah, I mean, listen, I've been on both sides. I've dated women with children, and I had to be the stepfather, and I'm in a blended family co-parenting relationship now with my son's mother, and my son has a stepfather. So I've been in both sides, and I think the interesting thing of a blended family is certainly the family dynamics and what boundaries get set early on. So when my son's mother started to date her current husband, I said, Is this relationship serious? Not because I cared about who she was with, but I just from a protective father standpoint, I need to understand what you're doing here. Like, are you just hanging out with this guy or is this guy gonna be someone who's gonna be around my son often? And when she told me that she was dating him and it was serious, I was like, okay, cool. I need to have a conversation with this man. And her initial reaction was like, why? And I'm like, what do you mean, why? Because you have my child, and I just need to make sure that certain boundaries are understood. She was like, no, no, uh, now that you frame it that way, I completely understand. So, long story short, we had a conversation, and I let him know, I'm like, listen, this is my son, this is the current situation, this is the circumstances, this is what he likes, what he doesn't like. But rest assured, I'm his father and I am present. I haven't left. I didn't leave his mom, you know, like the situation unfolded how it unfolded. But I am a present father. He's with me every weekend. We have a great relationship, and I plan on being his father and being present in his life until the day that I die. So I just want you, as the new guy stepping into this family dynamic, to understand where I stand as a father. And fortunately, he was very receptive, very respectful, uh, completely understood where I was coming from. And I think that is the ideal situation with any blended family, is when you can have both parties come to the table and share boundaries and feelings and emotions and wounds and you know insecurities and align on those things. Because once that meeting does not take place, you leave everything for chance and ambiguity. And no one knows how each other feels, no one knows anything, and then drop-offs become difficult, pickups become difficult, words get exchanged when someone doesn't like certain things. So I think if we're giving a little bit of actionable advice on the blended family topic, is you got to come to the table together and let each side know what is the intent, you know, of that person in the family dynamic.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Rich, you said something that I want to zoom in on. And what I'm reading here brought up a good point. In a blended family, it all comes down to ego parenting versus thoughtful parenting. And I really want to hear your feedback on this, being that you have real life experience with this. Ego parenting versus thoughtful parenting is the common knowledge between everybody involved, they have to know a child shouldn't have to make a choice on sides just because two adults can't stay together. The adults not being able to stay together might be the greatest blessing to this child because if you stay in a relationship that is not working in order to raise a child, sometimes what happens is the opposite. That child wounds up resenting their entire life because their entire life is filled with two adults that didn't like each other and created straight chaos for the entire raising of that child. So when you think of ego parenting versus thoughtful parenting, I'm curious to know what your feedback is. Because to me, ego parenting is putting the pressure on your child to tell them, Am I number one in your life? Am I your number one dad? Am I the person you love most? Don't love that guy more than you love me because I'm your father. Don't ever forget that. Versus thoughtful parenting, which is if my child is safe and my child is understanding of the situation that me and his mother are in, then I can educate him on that. The only thing I'm worried about is does my child feel loved? Is he supported? And is he safe?

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Yeah, listen, that's a great topic and nuance. And that's something that I've had to explain to my son too. Is like understanding that me and your mom not being together is probably the best thing that ever happened for you because now we get to be the best versions of ourselves for you. Had we stayed together for something that we knew early on was not gonna work, you would have gotten the short end of the stick as far as you know, maximizing our potential as parents towards you, right? And I think that certainly helped reframe his mind to understand that this separation was not a net negative to his life. But you made a good point, Jess. Like you have to understand that once you're co-parenting, once you're part of a blended family, you have to be a little selfless. Everything is about the children, right? Everything is about the well-being of the children, how you're raising them to be, what information you're giving them, what nutrition you're giving them, right? Like everything becomes about the children. So when you start to parent with your ego and try to sort of one up her all the time and try to be the favorite parent, you start to create more friction in that family dynamic. I did do that early on, but on some playful shit. Like I would always take my son to theme parks every weekend just so he could have something to say when he returned back to his mom. Like, I had so much fun with my dad. My dad is amazing. But I did it on some playful shit. And it was really me maximizing the little bit of time that I had with him. So I'd never wasted time. If I only had him three days, I made sure that those three days we were cramming in some fun. I was cramming in some lessons to teach him, and I had to do seven days worth of parenting in two and a half days. And that's been like that his entire life.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I I want I want you to go into thoughtful, blended family and ego blended family, because that's something for me that I remember being conflicted in when I was young. Like, I could feel the pressure of my father asking me, what has my stepfather done for me, or what he has he done for my mom. You know what I mean? Like, I could feel that pressure. That he would be like, oh, what did he do? What did he get you? What did he do for you? What did he do for your mom? Where did y'all go? Oh, he does that because he's trying to win your mom over with money. And I could feel the competition as a kid and to be sitting in between. And it always made me conflicted because it did make me feel like I was being more loyal to my steppops, even if I was becoming a friend of his and someone that I was allowing him in my life. So I'm just curious from a father's perspective, what is the difference between ego parenting and thoughtful parenting?

SPEAKER_01 21:06

I mean, listen, I think from my perspective, because I I think I my son was born when I was 24 years old. So I was very young and I did have that ego-driven parenting where I felt like he needed to know who his father was at all times, and no other man could have replaced me, right? So I would tell him things to cultivate his mind, to only view me as his dad, which, you know, I regret to some degree. But the way I've adjusted my parenting to him as a part time father, which fucking still hurts to say, is I just do the best that I can for him with the time that we have allotted. And I don't overdo things, right? Like I don't try to overcompensate anymore. I really treat the three days that we have together. As like any other day, right? I think repetition certainly helps. Like I've had the same schedule with him for 14 years. He knows what to expect when he comes home. He knows what to expect when I drop him off. But I think early on, when the schedule's not set in stone, when the boundaries are not set, when things are left with many questions, you leave room for friction and conflict and misunderstandings and a not so pleasant co-parenting relationship. So certainly I think understanding that the blended family is not a negative thing. You know what I'm saying? It's just the current circumstances and we have to work together and work around these circumstances, is what I try to reframe in my child and for myself too.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

We've taken a few perspectives here. And the one that I think would be probably the most beneficial for us to get into because it is very possible that the young man listening to this episode is the child in this situation. And I wanted to frame something for the listener that I think would be beneficial to them. We already took the stance of the father, the biological father, right? That's you. Uh we already took the stance of the stepfather, which is I was able to speak on that because I was raised by a stepfather. But I don't think we've taken the time to really understand the perspective of the child, the person that's going through it. And I think one thing that adults get wrong is when they expect the kid to adjust faster than the adult situation. Example, if your mother is in an unhappy relationship with your father and she decided that she needed to move on for many reasons. But let's just say she was unhappy in that relationship and needed to move forward. I think a lot of times the younger person, it's a lot for them to understand, and they are literally small brains and small bodies, and they can't comprehend what's going on. And I think sometimes parents put the pressure on the child to understand what's happened quicker than they can either comprehend or they're willing to comprehend. So the kid's argument is, and I'll be curious to know your feedback, is I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask for two homes. I didn't ask for my father to come see me on the weekends. I didn't ask for a stepdad. I just wanted a normal family. And when I say that, Rich, what comes to mind if you're talking about a young man listening to this and he's conflicted and he feels like he didn't ask for any of it?

SPEAKER_01 24:29

I mean, listen, this young man is exactly right. And this is something my son has literally told me verbally to me, is like, why do I have to have two houses? Why do I need to have two separate rooms? Why do I have to have double of everything? Right. And unfortunately, that is his reality. And I've had to explain to him that things happen as an in adults and in their lives that cause the outcome to not be ideal. And your current circumstances are exactly what you're living right now: two families, two different households, two dads, right? Two moms. And you know what I've spent a lot of time doing with him is just helping him understand that your current circumstances are not a disability. Like you are not handicapped because this is how you're being raised. If anything, think of this as a win because you do have double of everything, right? Like he he came home one time, I'll never forget this, and he said there was a kid in class who said he had mentioned that he had a stepfather. And the kid was like, You have a stepfather? Damn, that's sad. And he just like froze, like he didn't know how to interpret that. He's like, What do you mean that's sad? That's been my whole life. What's so sad about that? Like, I have a dad and I have a stepdad. And I had to sit down with him and really help him understand. Like, other people in different circumstances don't understand that because they have a mom and they have a dad. But having a stepfather, having a stepmom does not mean you're handicapped, does not mean you're lesser than. And it shouldn't make you feel like you're handicapped to do beautiful, amazing things in the future. So I think certainly to the young man listening to this who finds himself in that circumstance, I would say that is like, bro, you have double of everything. What a blessing. You know, don't look at it as a shortcoming, don't look at it as like a setback or as something that's gonna prevent you from doing amazing things in the future.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Rich, I had no idea we were gonna get into the benefits of blended families and being in conflict with a father that basically walked out of your life if he's no longer with your mother. They chose not to be together. So as a young person, you feel conflict. You feel resentment towards your father for leaving your family or your mother for choosing to separate with your father. And then there's even more conflict because a new man comes into your life. And this new man wasn't chosen by you. This is just a random dude that your mom met. And you can only imagine the type of shit that they got going on. So now you're conflicted. But you mentioned something that is unknown, possible positive of being in a blended family. And it's unknown because you don't know what you're gonna get out of it because everything feels negative. And I have a funny ass story about having a blended family. What turned into not having any male role models in my life for two years when my mother and father separated and my mother was single, I now had a stepdad, I now had a biological father, and I had an older brother who was trying to help me out in the transition. And all three of these guys, they felt very invested in this time that I was going through. So what turned into zero quickly turned into three in a situation when I went, I moved from one high school to another. And when I went to this new high school, I got into a crazy problem at the high school. I was in the basketball team. I had talked some shit during a basketball game to a dude that was whatever, he was part of a gang. And I had spoken myself into a problem in a school where I didn't know anybody. Rich, you know the people in the story. So I'm not gonna say their names, but in this story, I was talking so much shit that the one kid in the basketball team was like, yo, after practice, I'm gonna see all that shit you got to talk when I pull up on you and my older brother. So I went to the bathroom, grabbed my cell phone, I text my older brother, like, yo, I think I'm gonna get jumped after practice. Please pull up at the school where we're having practice. I get out at 9:30. Because I came from a blended family where I had a stepfather who was really about that action. I had a biological father who was living in Brooklyn, New York at the time. He took the tunnel to come see me because he was also trying to protect his son who was about to get jumped. And then I had my older brother, who was my rock, he's my everything. And he phoned out three bat lines to be like, yo, Justin is about to get jumped. And I'll never forget it, bro. I was leaving practice, I'm scared as hell. I'm like taking my time in the locker room, like showering, and like fuck, I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm asking my brother, like, yo, are you around? He's like, Yeah, we outside. I'm like, who's we? He's like, just come outside. So I come out through the front entrance of the school, Rich, and my father, my stepfather, my brother, and four dudes that they picked up from the block just to pull up were outside in three different cars waiting for me. True story, bro. True story. And when I went out, the kid that was gonna jump me and his older brother were outside. And I just walked up to the car where everybody was at, and my whole family was basically outside waiting for me. And I've never felt more protected in my life because I just got to walk past these two dudes that were about to jump me, and I just kind of looked at them like, yo, so what's up? And they were like, nah, you're good, you're good, like, you're good. And I just walked over and I adapt my father, adapt my steppops, adapt my brother. And at that moment, it didn't matter who the fuck my father was. I just felt uh the allegiance of protection. And I think you mentioned something that made me think of that, Rich. The redundancies and the double love and the double of everything could be a positive. Now, listen, we're not that kind of platform. We're gonna try to paint a fucked up situation to be a good situation. I think we've done justice to most of the show to prove that this is a fucked up situation and no kid should have to go through this. But in the event that they do have to go through this, and you're one of every three people in the United States, one in every three people in the United States comes from a blended family. That's a lot of people. That's not a niche no more. That's not a small demographic. It's not 1950 where everybody has to stay in a relationship forever. Your mother does have the choice to get out of a relationship if she doesn't feel like it's benefiting her anymore. And a lot of kids suffer from that. And I think that's what the whole episode is about. So sorry to be long-winded, Rich, but I did forget that that did happen. And in that moment, I felt protected because I not only had one father who cared about me, I had three male role models and three figures in my life that cared so much about me that they were willing to defend me in a crisis. And that is a good metaphor for how sometimes a split family, a blended family, could turn into a lot of love because you have a lot of people who are invested in you.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah, I love that. The whole tribe popped out for you. And, you know, think of just if you zoom out a little bit in time, how if you didn't cultivate that relationship with your stepfather, like maybe you would have pushed him so far away to the point where he wouldn't have felt comfortable showing up for you because you didn't want anything to do with him.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Also, what am I gonna show up for this kid for? Fuck him.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Yeah, he hates my guts. Let his father deal with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let his ass get beat. Maybe he deserves it, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Like maybe we're gonna learn a lesson.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

No, but I mean, I think it's super critical because I think there's so many different wounds associated with this topic that we're trying to help other young men identify. It's just like if you come from a circumstance or situation where you do have a stepfather, like give that man a some grace, right? Especially if he's showing up, doing the right things, trying to get close to you, trying to build a relationship, trying to take you to the arcade. Like, this man comes in peace. He's not here to fill your father's shoes. He's not here to necessarily be your father, but he's certainly there to be an additional resource if you so need it, if you're so looking for a mentor or a father figure, right? And bro, you have to respect the guys that step in to fill those shoes, you know, because I think initially most men enter relationships wanting to be with a mom. But if the byproduct of being with said woman is, hey, I have children, and they accept that, they've chosen to be part of your life. There's no guessing whether this guy likes you or potentially grows to love you. He's already chosen you versus your real dad who might have left the equation and just never looked back. So I think certainly the distinction just between dads and fathers, I think is super important. And I think your circumstance is unique because you have both. And I'd be interested to know like, was there friction early on between your dad and stepdad? Or like, was it always like, I listen, we're cool, we love our kids, and we just have to be cordial moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Yeah, I gotta be careful with this one because both of my parents, mom and dad, and my stepfather are still very much alive and well and um follow us on all platforms. So gotta be sensitive to the people involved. But if I'm giving advice to a young man and I want to use my life as proof of like concept, I can say my entire childhood was filled with conflict of young people having kids young and then trying to figure out how to navigate their lives after they had young kids young. And I know that because I'm a byproduct of that. And it's part of the reason why we created this platform because we do understand that when you grow up in an inner city and you grow up in a fucked up family, a poor family, a broken family, a chaotic family, or just straight up blended family, you start taking this victim mentality where you think to yourself a lot, like, man, I wish I had a normal family. I wish I had two parents and the picket fence and the dog, and everybody made a lot of money in my family, and I get to go whatever school I want to go to, and I get to have my own bedroom, and I don't gotta sleep with all my cousins in the same bedroom. And what Rich and I are learning from creating this platform is that most families are fucked up. Most young men come from fucked up situations. It just depends on what type of fucked up you're coming from. You could come from a lot of money and still have a fucked up childhood. You could have both parents at home, but one of them is an alcoholic and the other one doesn't want to be with your father. It's very possible. So, not to skirt the question, Rich, I just want to re-pivot it and say there is no such thing as perfect when it comes to being raised in a family that's going through reality. So my family's no different. I've always taken that reframe of my life because it allows me as an adult to really, really, really understand what it is that I have resentment about, what it is that I'm angry about, what it is that I give myself an excuse to not do good things. It's I got to remove the victim mentality by really telling myself, man, my father had me when he was fucking 23 years old. He he dropped out of school in the seventh grade. My mother had me when she was 21 years old. She dropped out of school in the seventh grade. What can I really expect from two people who not only don't have the proper textbook education, they're smart. They got a lot of smarts, but they didn't give themselves an opportunity to succeed. Do I really think the percentages of them being in a perfect family that makes a lot of money is going to work out given the circumstances that they have me under? I'll give everyone the Uno pass card, the Uno skip card, because my mom had a fucked up childhood, my father had a fucked up childhood, and unfortunately they had two kids and they were just born into a situation that wasn't ideal. Me and my brother were born into a situation that wasn't perfect. So to answer your question, Rich, hell yeah, there was a lot of fucking conflict. We're talking about two fucking battling rams meeting each other at the top of a mountain and fighting over the one lady ram that is my mother. You know, like of course, my father, his name is Macho. Of course, he's gonna have some level of frustration and feel like he lost out on something.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

And you know what, just but rightfully so, because I do remember when my son's mother told me that she was getting married and she found this dude. Bro, I want to be very clear. I never wanted to get back with her ever, right? But the ego. But the ego, the ego to know that there was another guy that's gonna be in my son's life and have much more time with him than I do. Damn, that's deep. Bro, it crushed me. And that was something as a man and as a young father that I had to adjust to. There were a lot of things where you need to really think about when it comes to that dynamic, bro, because she was with a guy prior to him that I did not get along with. And there was a lot of, without saying too many things, court sessions and you know, beefs and problems and arguments and words said, There was a lot of situations that weren't ideal. And I'm very grateful and fortunate that she found a guy that grounded her, that gave her stability, that gave my son stability. And this is one of the things that I told him when I met with him is like, I'm actually grateful that you've entered this family dynamic because I know you're gonna do good here. And as long as my son's mother's doing good, then I know he's good. And that's all I ever want. And if we can live in peace and harmony, you know, not to be so kumbaya, but like if we can find some form of stability in this chaotic dynamic that is divorce, marriage, divorce, exes, stepchildren, children out of wedlock. If we could find some type of stability in this chaotic family dynamic, let's find it. Because the net negative to the stability is that this child, this child being my son, grows up feeling stable in a broken home.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Yeah. And I want to make this clear. I know I've been through this, I've lived through this. If you're in conflict about being raised by a stepfather, knowing that you love your father, you know who your father is, just know and remember you can always honor your biological father without rejecting the man who's helping raise you, without rejecting the man who's decided he loves your mom when your mother and father are no longer working out. This is possible. Two things can be true at the same time. You don't have to push one away to receive the other one. Because realistically speaking, the man who birthed you is your blood parent. But the man who's trying to step in is stepping in because you are a part of the baggage that came with your mother. If we're being honest. So that is something he's doing by choice. Rich, you said it earlier. A stepfather that wants to be involved in a young man's life is truly doing that by choice. He can easily treat you like the stray dog that is in the house and he doesn't have to acknowledge you. As long as your mother feeds you, your mother takes care of you, they could have came to that agreement way before they got together. But a man who opts in is a man that is looking to help out, and you got to acknowledge that. You don't have to acknowledge it. Let me be clear. At some point, you're gonna realize that it's worth acknowledging.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Yeah, no, I agree with you. And listen, if you're someone out there listening who is the stepfather, and you're now the stepfather to some young children from your woman, you know, treat that situation delicately. Be patient. Understand that this child might be going through a lot emotionally, a lot mentally. We've said this before on other episodes, but everyone's sort of grieving process and wounds heal differently. And it might take some time for this child to adjust to the new family dynamic with you involved in it.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

It's in our research paper. It's called the loyalty conflict, Rich. It's the question a young man asks himself, and I want you to get back to your point. The question I used to ask myself as a young man was like, if I embrace the love and the protection that this man, that is my stepfather, is giving me, does that mean I'm being disloyal to my biological father? Does that mean I hate my father? Does that mean I'm being a traitor and I don't stand by my father? That conflict does come up often in a blended family.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Yeah. And as the stepfather, the best thing you could do for that child, even if he is initially rejecting you, is try to build some formality and be cordial with his father. Because think about it from the child's perspective. If he sees his dad and stepdad having a conversation, if he visually sees that and there's a handshake at the end of that conversation, bro, it naturally his little brain just recomputes and he's like, oh, wait, this guy's not an enemy. He's not a stranger, he's not bad. Like he just spoke to my dad, and my dad just shook his hand. There's peace here, there's harmony, there's some type of unison between the relationship and the dynamic that there's going to be in the family now because uh I have a stepfather. So I think you certainly need to be mature if you're gonna be a stepfather, bro. Like you gotta really understand that love is not enough. It's not just about you and your lady. It's you, your lady, the kids, the dad, grandparents. There's so many people involved in a family dynamic that you really have to be flexible and understand everyone's feelings as the family dynamic is changing because you're now in it.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Rich, there is something I wanted to share, and I think it's important because I'm really thinking about the young man who maybe doesn't even have a stepfather, and he's the product of a single mother, and he's just alone with his other relatives, and their mother is alone. That's a reality that is also a part of the blended family, right? Because now you're living with your grandmother or you're living with an aunt or uncle that's kind of filling in the financial gap, especially if you grew up in the places that we grew up in. So I would say to the young man listening to this, whether your situation is with your mom and dad are always arguing and you wish they weren't together because there's a lot of chaos in your family, that's one option. Second option is your mom is divorced with your dad, no longer with your dad, and she's with a new man and she's happy, but you're confused about the situation because you think you're not being loyal to your biological father, so you're in conflict. And then there's the third one where your mom is single and she's alone and you see how alone she is, but you can't really fill that void because you're a young man. You can only do with so much as a young man. So, in a weird way, you secretly hope that she finds her happiness because you can't fill that void. Those three scenarios I laid out, Rich, I think between me and you, we've been through all of them.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

Yeah, absolutely. And I could definitely directly speak to my situation because I was raised by a single mother. And I did see her date growing up. And um, I wasn't happy about it. I was always like resentful, and I was like, you know, I wasn't sure if this uh new relationship was like long term, short term, if she was, you know, I don't know what she was looking for, but I just knew as a young man, I was always angry whenever she was dating somebody. I really couldn't tell you why, but I just always felt like that young guy who felt like no one can fill the shoes of his dad, even though my dad wasn't there. Like that that's the weird part about it.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

Like, wait, wait, unpack that a little bit. Do you realize how ridiculous that was as an adult? Yeah, now I do as I'm repeating it. I'm just what do you think that came from?

SPEAKER_01 44:39

I think it came from feeling like I didn't want her love to be divided. Like she already had three children, and I felt like if there was another guy in the picture, now her love to us had to go four ways, you know? Damn, that's deep. I think that's probably where it came from now that I reflect on it.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

Did your other brothers feel that way, or was it just you because you were like the oldest? Nah, bro. We we hated any dude my mom was dating. Like that was like, yeah, that was something. Sounds good. Let's stay right here. Yeah, what was that about? I don't know, bro.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

I just I remember one time my mom cooked like some steak for some dude, and we were just angry that he was there. Like, yo, you don't cook us steak. Like, why the fuck you cooking this guy's steak?

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Yeah, there's something, there's something like animalistically primal about three little male cubs mad because another guy you don't know is just eating a protein, a meat that you guys never get served. There's something symbolic there where you're like, nah, fuck that guy.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

I think it was, yeah, I think it was very primal of us. Do you feel like you were the leader of that energy? Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, my brothers were like, yo, how should we be feeling? I'm like, angry, bro. Fuck this guy. And we want steak.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

You know, but that but that honestly goes back to the father wound, right? That's like a little bit of that unpacking comes from your father not being around.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

Yeah, a hundred percent. I just think it's ironic that we felt like we had something to protect when there was nothing there to protect. Like we didn't have a father, so we weren't protecting the shoes of anybody, really. It was more or less of just us feeling like we didn't want the only thing that we had, which was our mother taken away from us by some other guy. I think that's where it comes from.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

You know, Rich, at 40 years old, I could look back to when I was 13, 14, 15, and my mother was dating and she finally met my stepdad. I can look back clearly and say two things. One, if you are a stepfather that has just entered a new young man's life and you're trying to figure it out with him, give it time. Because it's a young man's brain that needs to adjust, and he literally has no life experience. His perspective is only as wide as the little bit of time he's had with his mom and dad. It's gonna be hard for him, except anybody else. He's a little cub. All he knows is what was been around him to this day. So you have to give it time. And if you're a young man that's experiencing your mom go through a transition and she's bringing in a stepfather into your life, give it time. And the research shows that the stepfather success rate is much higher for a young man who accepts a new man in his life because he now can accept this male role model, somebody that's in his house that can help him navigate through life. Whether you're going to college, whether you're dealing with women, whether you're you're interviewing for your first job, whether you're accepting the harsh realities that are the world today in 2020, whatever. Your father, any father figure is going to be a net positive versus zero father figure. So the stats show there is a higher success rate for a young man who accepts a stepfather in his life because any father figure is better than zero father figure. So just keep that in mind if you're a young man listening to this. That resentment and looking in your past and wanting things to be the same, if that is something you have zero control over, then you have to let that go, my boy. You're not deciding who your mother is with, she is deciding who she's with. So what you have zero control over is something that you can't allow to be the determinant whether you are or not having a good life. If he's a good dude, if he treats you okay, he makes your mother happy, you know definitively he makes your mother happy. If he's contributing to keeping a fucking house over your head and you be eating the Oreos that he buys when he does grocery shopping, then you would be benefited if you decided to take a perspective that was a little bit more grateful, a little bit more realistic to the lack of control that you have. And more importantly, it's going to benefit you at the end of your life. You don't see it now, but trust me, it's going to benefit you. I'm speaking from experience. Anytime I go through a crisis as a man, I have four options to pick up the phone and call and get advice from these different male role models I have in my life. So I don't have resentment towards my dad as a 40-year-old who had a stepfather. But when I look back, I think about myself at 13 and 14, I was always mad about it. I was always pushing back on a guy that just wanted to be with my mom. And I just so happened to come with the package. Last thing I'll say, Rich, statistically proven, we have the research, it takes two to four years for anyone to see the actual value of an integrated family. Meaning the mom's not going to see the full potential and the clarity of the integrated family until two or three years into it. The father, the stepfather, and the child. So you have to give it time. These things take time because they're so different. They're so nuanced, they're so conflicted, emotions are involved. But if you give it two or three years, it'll reach its baseline and you'll start to see how much it can benefit you.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Yeah, Just, that's a great point. And I think if you're a young man listening to this, I think you certainly have to give it time. And I think you need to be smart, bro. There's a lot of bullshit that comes from things your mom tells you, things your stepfather tells you, things your dad tells you that you have to unpack and sort of understand what they all mean. For example, I could see a lot of different scenarios, and this actually happened to me when I was younger, where for the few years that my dad was around, around, meaning like picking up the phone and calling us, he was paying child support. And this motherfucker thought because he was sending us $100 a month that he was entitled to like an opinion or anything, or like, hey, look, I'm still around. I send you guys child support, right? Bro, they were literally sending us $25 like each for each child a month. It was something ridiculous, like $100 a month. But it was crazy to me that from his perspective, he thought that he was being a father. I'm paying child support, I'm a dad, you know. But he wasn't there physically, he wasn't there emotionally, he wasn't there for us for a fucking hug, you know what I mean? Or to take us out to eat, or anything that would constitute what a father would do for a young man. And again, with the mom, right? There's a lot of things about what your mom says to you that might not always necessarily be true. The other side of the spectrum is that this guy might want to be present and your mom is blocking visitations.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

That's a big one, Rich. Your mom is shaping your perspective of your father, and your father is trying.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

Yes. And then you have the dynamic of your stepfather trying to figure out where he fits in the mold. So my advice and cautionary tale to this young guy is have the ability to take in all this information and decipher for yourself what is true and what isn't true. Because the information coming from your mom might not always be the right information. Or the information coming from dad might not always be the right information. And unfortunately, you're stuck in the middle to decipher what is real and what is not. And that's part of the cautionary tale we want guys, you know, to figure out for themselves.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Yeah, perspective is everything, Rich. We're finding a happy place in this episode because there's so many perspectives that we could take. But again, if I go back to our core listener demographic, it's a young man that is looking for answers in a conflicting time in his life. All of our episodes are dedicated to that. Young man, 15, 16, 17, 18, all the way to 25 years old, is dealing with just something that really fucks his brain up. And the hope is you could just press play on one of these episodes and we're here to guide you. The beauty of what we're learning, Rich, about our community and their issues and the things that they're trying to figure out is that they're so nuanced, it would be non-genuine of us to give them five steps to figuring out this problem because there is no five steps to this problem. There's so many variables and there's so many people involved in a blended family that we can't say X is bad and Y is good. That's not how this works. It's about perspective, in my opinion. As a young man, I had a very angsty, angry, optimistic perspective of what I wanted from my mother and my father. So I blame my mother for not being with my father. And I blame my father for not becoming around me. But like you said, Rich, who knows? Maybe my mother was feeding me some information about my father that wasn't accurate. And it was causing me to have a little resentment towards my father. Who knows? I don't know. I still don't know. I'm a grown man and I don't know. So these feelings that I have towards different people in my family, it could be because of time and a place where I didn't have the maturity. I didn't have the life experience. I didn't have the perspective. I didn't have the grace to allow other people going through what they were going through in their life to be the reason why they find their clarity. So for me, maturity is about being able to look back and just thanking the people who loved me before I even had the language to understand what love was. And that's all I can say personally. And I think the young man that's listening to this should also find it in themselves to have that moment where they can think, damn, but who was around to love me? Shit, it could be your grandmother, it could be your mom's best friend. We don't know. These things are highly nuanced. But what I can say is for the people who weren't around, anybody who openly just abandoned you, that's a different Pandora's box that you can open. But if people tried to show up for you and you push them back, that's something you really need to reconsider.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

That's the best thing you could do, just because we say this often. But if you make your circumstances your identity, and you're the young guy who feels like I came from a broken home. I came from a chaotic upbringing. Therefore, I'm never gonna amount to anything, or I don't want to try hard for anything because my father ain't shit, my stepfather ain't shit. Like that, then you start to enter that victim mode that we constantly remind our viewers and listeners of, which is like, bro, you're not a victim to your circumstance, right? You're not a victim to your upbringing. Like you didn't make the conscious decision to make your parents divorce. They didn't divorce because of you. Like, I want to make really emphasize that to the young listener that you need to relieve yourself of any guilt that you're carrying if you start to make this divorce or this separation of your parents your fault. It's not your fault. Your parents made a decision as adults, and unfortunately, your life is going to be altered because of this decision, but you are not a victim. And I can't emphasize that enough because you know, we say this often, just like when you fall into the victim mode, that's where you go down the negative path of like smoking weed at 16 and trying different drugs and feeling doom and gloom. And it's like, ah, but my parents don't love me. They got divorced, they're separated.

SPEAKER_00 55:44

You're trying to numb that pain. Yeah. You're just trying to numb that pain. You're trying to block out this highly nuanced, highly complicated problem. And, you know, Rich, I'd be curious to know what you think about this. But what you just said felt like maybe young people blame themselves because they can't find the answer.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

I mean, as humans, we're always trying to find the answer to things that we don't understand. So, yes, I do agree. I think the young man doesn't understand why his parents are separating. And, bro, as adults in the room, there's a lot of things that we shield our kids from. My son doesn't know half of the things I've been through in the separation of me and his mom, but that's by design. Because I feel like he's either not ready to know, not mature enough to know, or shit, just doesn't need to know because I'm protecting him from the things that went on in order to preserve his innocence, preserve his future. And, you know, I really took the time to make sure that, and I'm still taking the time to make sure that my son does not grow up with this victim mentality of thinking that the separation happened because of him, or that he's going to grow up to be lesser than because his mom and dad are not with him in the same home.

SPEAKER_00 56:59

I have three things that I wrote down here that I think are crucial when I think about the young man that yearns for the days that his parents were back together. Because I think that is what creates a lot of friction for a young person. It created a lot of friction for me. I just couldn't accept the reality as a 14-year-old that I was living in. My father was no longer around. So I kept looking at old pictures of my mom or my father when they were younger. I kept thinking of old memories that I've created in my mind of my mom and my father being together. And I was a part of that. I was the little fourth person in those pictures, me, my brother, my mom, and my dad. I used to always put those memories in loop in my brain of a better time. But your memory is a lie. Your memory is a liar. I learned that as an adult. Your memory is a very unreliable resource of your past. I've said this in other episodes. And I think it's really important for people to understand this. It's scientifically proven. Our memories are garbage. You can't even remember what the fuck you did a year ago today. If I showed you a picture of some shit you were doing three years ago, you wouldn't even be able to tell me if that was eight months ago or two years ago because your memory is very foggy. But when you're going through a crisis and your body can't accept the reality of today, you start making up stories about your past because they make you feel good about what's happening today. And your memory is a liar. Stop looking at old pictures of things that were, because all they are are these little snapshots of a moment in time. And then you build your story around these snapshots. Look at this picture of me, my mom, and my dad. They were so happy at this time. You know what happened to me recently, Rich? I have a fucking photo. I have it over here. I'm about to grab it. I have a scrapbook of photos that I put together of my family before my mom and dad got divorced. It's pictures of me and my brother, me and my mom. We're at the park, we're at the bootleg fucking six flags, or we're at the bootleg Disneyland around a fake ass big bird. And I'm looking at all these pictures through like very rosy colored lens of what I thought my life was. True story, Rich. I printed out this Google uh photo book for my mom. And I asked her, hey, did you get it? She was like, Oh yeah, I got it. Thank you for sending it. I said, damn, I thought you'd be more excited about it. You know what she told me, Rich? I can't really look at it. I said, why not? She's like, I know you look at those pictures of when you and your brother were young and you're happy, and you think that's when me and your father were happy. But in every one of those pictures, I was suffering. In every one of those pictures, I was miserable. In every one of those pictures, either I went out the night before and I did something wrong, they got your father mad, or your father went out the night before, and it got physical, it got abusive. And when I look at those pictures, all I could think about was how I was wasting my life and I wasn't happy. But to me and my brother, those pictures were the most beautiful times of our life. Mixed families, divorced families, single parents, abusive parents, mentally abusive, physically abusive, verbally abusive. Everyone goes through this, some version of this. Drugs, alcohol, violence. We think we're alone, but we're not. But what the fucked up part is that we track memories of snapshots in our lives, and then we try to build these little narratives around them that things were perfect when they weren't. If your mother chose not to be with your dad because of whatever reason, if your dad chose to not be with your mother because of whatever reason, just trust that at that time you might have been too young to understand what the fuck was really going on in their lives. And you're trying to preserve something that I promise you was not worth preserving, even if your life wasn't perfect, even if your childhood wasn't perfect, even if you didn't get to live with two parents. Because I can reverse engineer a reality where my mom stood with my father, and it probably would have been the worst for my mother. I got to see my mother get married to my stepfather, and I got to see her be married to this man for 35 years, Rich. My mom has been married to my steppops. And those have been a wonderful 30 years of my mom's life. So if you're truly being unselfish, you want your mother to live a version of her life that she's happy with. Meanwhile, you have to navigate your own life. And we did discuss this off air, Rich. And I think it's worth ending the episode here. This is a good opportunity when you become a little older to right the wrongs that you think happened in your life by having your own family.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

Yeah, and listen, I think that's the POV that we're fortunate enough to speak on this episode with is we're looking 30 years ahead in time.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:58

Great point. You're saying the young man listening to this, we are 30 years ahead of you saying this.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

30 years from now, you're gonna love your stepfather. It's gonna be one of the most important people in your life, right? Now you might not see that today, but I promise you, if you take the time to be patient and cultivate that relationship, that man loves you and you love that man.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:19

You just don't see it yet. And 10 years from now, if you're angry that your mother separated with your father, 10 years from now, you're actually gonna be happy that your mother made that decision because she's happier. Yeah, absolutely. Is there a world, Rich, where you thought to yourself, like, damn, I wish my mom would have stood with my father? And is there a reality that you live in now that can honestly say, I'm kind of happy that didn't happen because my mother would have been miserable?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

Bro, I think that whether we like to see it or not, depending on different circumstances and different emotions, right? Like sometimes you're going through something in life and you feel like you're suffering and it's the worst thing in the world. But hindsight is a motherfucker, right? And when you look back, me growing up without a father was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Me not being with my son's mother is probably the best outcome that could have happened for him. You never really know until situations arise, and then you have the hindsight to look back on it to reflect, like, damn, that was best case scenario. At the time it felt like suffering. But 10 years out, 15 years out, it's probably the best outcome that could have happened. And it's hard to see that for some of these young guys because they're in it right now, they're in the trenches, they're going through it right now. They feel that hurt and they feel that pain. But like me, like your neighborhood, uncles, Justin and Rich say, just give it time, be patient. We we promise you there's uh there's a happier ending on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:47

Yeah, Rich, I do want to say this. I think the summary of this episode, and I've slowly worked my way to figuring out my own life while unpacking this episode, which is kind of cool. It's like therapy, it's cathartic. I got to unpack my life and think to myself, damn, what would I tell a 14-year-old version of myself that was really mad at my mom for literally leaving my pops? And my mom didn't just leave, she tried to move from one city to a new city to try to escape this man. I know now why she did that, but at the time I was young and I was so mad at her. But if I look back, and now my mom is in a happy marriage. I haven't physically seen my mom in months. I called her maybe once every two to three months. I'm happy that she found the man that she could be with when I'm not around. Because selfishly, I wanted to be the only thing that mattered to her when I was 14. But at 40, I don't want to be the only man that matters to her because I'm building my own family. So a part of me, and I'm speaking for myself, but I hope any young man listening to this could relate. A part of me was being really selfish. A part of you and your brothers was being really selfish that she was making steak for another guy because she was trying to figure out her life moving forward. I bet now you're happy that she went and did those things because now you're happy to see your mom every now and then. She gets to see your kids. Now, selfishly, she's not the center of your universe. You wouldn't want her to be. You really have to think about that. If you're 15 in the next seven to 10 years, you're not gonna want your mom to be the center of your universe. Trust me, you're not gonna want that. But as a teenager, you're gonna want it. As an 18-year-old, you're gonna want it. You don't want that. And the last thing I wanted to say, Rich, was maybe a blended family is not the sign of failure or a fucked up family. Maybe a blended family is a gift that you don't even know that you will pay dividends as you move forward in your life. You don't know. A blended family is a patchwork of things that work moving forward. It's not trying to keep something going that is not working from the past. You don't know that. That's why these families are becoming more common because I think more people are finding results in just letting go of what is not working and trying to figure something out and moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:06

Yeah. Uh blended family could be a blessing in disguise. There you have it, man. Failures podcast. This was a deep one, just, but I hope something certainly resonates with uh our viewers or listeners. If you're a young man out there who's grown up with a stepfather, or you're a stepfather yourself and you're trying to navigate the relationship with a stepchild, like we always say, man, just be patient and things always get better.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:31

Man, Rich, this was a heavy one. I'm not gonna lie. I feel seen, I feel exposed. And you know what? I think that's what we do it for. Rich, you shared some things from your family that I'm sure you regret sharing, and I so do I. But the hope is that there is a young man who is listening to this episode. And shit, if you made it this far, if anything related to you or you felt like this was helpful to you, or if you know a friend or you have a relative that you think could benefit from, you know, this episode, share it. We don't sell nothing. We don't try to get any of our listeners to do anything. The best way you can benefit us and help us is by sharing any of our content. So if it helped you or if it helps somebody else, feel free to share it. Failures podcast. We're out of here. We out. Peace out.