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Welcome to the Dad Edge Podcast.

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The Dad Edge Movement creates leaders of men,

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leaders of families, and leaders of

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communities. We will not only

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impact this generation of fathers, but the

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next generation as well. The

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and odds stacked in their favor because of

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the amazing example that their fathers emulated for

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them. We are here

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to change the world. We are

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here to change relationships. We

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are here to positively disrupt this generation

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grave with regret. We

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disrupt the drift of busyness and replace

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purpose, and direction. We

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are the Dad Edge and we are

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here to change the game. What's

1:02

up gentlemen? Welcome to the Dad Edge

1:04

Podcast. I'm Larry Hagner, your host and

1:06

founder, and it is that

1:08

day. It is Valentine's Day and

1:11

I've got to be honest. I'm

1:13

not really excited about this day.

1:16

I'm never excited about this day. I'm

1:18

never excited about this day because for

1:20

several different reasons. Number one,

1:23

we're so expected to

1:25

do something that shows our

1:28

love and our appreciation, our care for

1:30

our significant others on just like this

1:32

one day. It kind

1:34

of feels like this trap in a way. What

1:36

I mean by that is it feels

1:38

like if we don't do something, then

1:42

we're definitely not a

1:44

romantic, we're selfish,

1:47

we're not showing our love and appreciation if

1:49

we don't do anything. If we

1:52

do something, whether it's a card

1:54

or a gift or whatever, it doesn't

1:56

really feel authentic either because it's

1:58

like, well, it's Valentine's Day. so I kind

2:00

of have to. So it's

2:03

this trap that a lot of couples fall into.

2:05

It's like, hey, how can I be genuine? Like

2:07

how can I leverage this day to

2:09

really tell my spouse, my wife, how much I care about her?

2:12

And for the wives who are listening to this show as well,

2:14

because I knew we do have some women who listen to this

2:16

show, it's like how do I make him

2:18

feel on top of the world on

2:20

this one day? So I have some ideas

2:22

for you because I know that this particular

2:24

podcast right now, I'm actually launching it on

2:26

Valentine's Day to help you just basically get

2:28

ready for it. And if you're anything like

2:31

me, I wait

2:33

till the last minute with some of these things. I

2:36

don't necessarily, I'm not 100% proactive

2:38

with holidays. And to be quite honest,

2:42

I'm not really proactive with Valentine's Day because I

2:44

kind of despise it. And

2:47

my wife knows I despise it. I'm

2:49

like, why do I need a day to tell

2:51

you, like for the calendar to

2:53

tell me, to tell you how much I love

2:56

and care about you. When I have 364

2:58

other days out of the year that

3:00

will do exactly that, that I can do that. However,

3:03

you can be pretty creative on Valentine's

3:06

Day. And even if you're listening to this

3:09

podcast and maybe you've done something, maybe you've

3:11

planned ahead, maybe you're better than most, or

3:14

maybe you're like, holy crap, like I need

3:16

to do something. So

3:18

I have some ideas that I wanna share with you. Number

3:22

one, never ever

3:24

underestimate the importance

3:27

of a handwritten letter from your

3:29

heart. Now I know we're all

3:31

into cards, right? But everyone can

3:33

read that fine print on cards,

3:35

right? We, they basically all

3:37

kind of say the same thing. We go

3:40

in, we pick the card that we think

3:42

means, is

3:44

most meaningful for our relationship.

3:47

And it puts into words

3:49

the relationship that we have with our wives. However,

3:53

most people just bypass that. Even

3:55

she does. They read some of the

3:58

words on the card, but what's really meaningful. is

4:01

what we write in that card. And here's what

4:03

I'll tell you. The more

4:05

specific that we can be

4:07

when we write a handwritten card, the

4:10

better it is. And the deeper

4:12

the experience is for her who's reading

4:14

it. And for those of you who are women who

4:16

are listening, the same thing goes for him. So

4:19

what you really wanna do in that card

4:21

is be very, very specific, right?

4:24

We love her, right? But we wanna tell her

4:26

why we love her, right? We wanna acknowledge and

4:28

appreciate the things that are most

4:31

unique to her. So

4:33

like, for instance, I'll give you an example. My

4:36

wife is, she is an

4:38

incredible mom of young men. She's

4:43

got this really interesting combination

4:46

of compassion, empathy,

4:48

and affection, but

4:50

she's also like, don't mess with me at

4:52

the same time. Like she's this perfect combination

4:55

of what a young man needs in

4:57

a mom. So like she's very

5:00

loving. She'll do anything

5:02

for the boys, but don't

5:04

cross her either, right? She's also tough.

5:07

And sometimes if the boys are like complaining too

5:09

much or maybe they're being just a little bit

5:11

of a baby, she'll be like, come

5:13

on. Like really, come on.

5:16

You can, we're better than that, right? And I

5:18

love the fact that she's like that. So she's

5:20

like this perfect mixture between

5:22

empathy, compassion, love,

5:25

affection, and tough love.

5:28

I love that about her. Another thing too

5:30

is that when my wife, my wife does

5:32

almost all the grocery shopping for us, and

5:35

my wife is always so good at

5:37

getting like these little things for the kids.

5:39

Like that they know that, she knows that

5:42

they like, right? So she's very

5:44

selfless when she shops for the kids.

5:47

And so I love that about her.

5:49

She's always thinking of everybody

5:51

else except for herself when she

5:53

does shopping. And that's not just grocery shopping.

5:56

She does this very same thing when she

5:58

goes shopping for like clothes. or things

6:00

like that. She's always finding these crazy

6:03

deals and she's always thinking about

6:05

other people besides herself,

6:07

right? Another thing too that

6:09

my wife does is one of

6:11

our core values with our

6:13

family is our environment. So like our

6:16

home. We always want our

6:18

home to be a place of rest,

6:21

of safety, a place where you can

6:23

hang your hat after a really tough day. And

6:26

my wife just works relentlessly on

6:29

making this home feel comfortable

6:31

and feel warm. And it's an environment where like

6:33

no matter what your day was, no matter

6:36

what happened to you, you can always

6:38

come here, right? And saying

6:41

things like that written down go a lot

6:43

farther than I appreciate

6:46

everything you do and you look super hot in

6:48

yoga pants. Which

6:51

those things are true too. But

6:53

getting very, very specific. So that's

6:56

number one. Never underestimate the

6:58

power of a handwritten card. The

7:00

other thing too is we can

7:03

do things today and even if it's last

7:05

minute that are super

7:07

meaningful that shows that we're

7:09

thinking about her or ladies if you're

7:11

listening thinking about him. So

7:13

like my wife loves

7:16

a vanilla latte from Starbucks. It's

7:18

like her guilty pleasure. She just loves that. So

7:21

one of the things that I did this

7:24

morning was I got

7:26

up early, I went and got her a coffee and

7:28

then I just wrote on the lid like how much

7:30

I love her. Happy Valentine's Day, love

7:32

you so much, enjoy your coffee. But

7:35

if you're not in the home, you can

7:37

door dash those things, right? Or

7:39

you can Uber Eats something. You

7:41

can send your wife maybe her favorite

7:43

coffee and breakfast pastry

7:46

from Starbucks if you want to. You

7:48

can do things like having her favorite lunch

7:50

delivered to her place of work or at

7:52

home if you're away. Or if

7:54

you're together and maybe you both work from home or

7:57

maybe you're both at home today, You can

7:59

actually just... Go out to lunch. Never as

8:01

underestimate the power of a date. Rights

8:03

to date actually a my opinion sometimes

8:05

is better than the evening dates. My

8:07

wife and I almost every Friday afternoon

8:10

we go out and we try to

8:12

do a day dates and it really

8:14

feels kind of cool because you're still

8:16

like a week during the day you're

8:18

not tired as com like it it's

8:20

it's is really cool wedge between like

8:22

to start of your day when the

8:24

kids come home from school and it's

8:26

like this really cool. Part. Of

8:28

the day that we can almost feel like

8:30

we're playing hooky. Like. Were escaping

8:32

like the norm is like hey it's

8:35

a school escape in go have lunch

8:37

real quick I go to Go Go

8:39

grab a coffee real quick or if

8:41

if you if you really feel like

8:43

party and a little bit like go

8:46

grab like a new and happy hour

8:48

as physicists right you can definitely do

8:50

those things. So a date and escape

8:52

like that or just sending your wife

8:54

like something from over eats like her

8:57

favorite months or door-her her favorite coffee

8:59

from Starbucks or her favorite coffee place.

9:01

but those. Are some pretty cool ideas as well.

9:04

Another thing to Here's here's number three. If

9:08

we've been married for any amount of time,

9:10

we experience from time to time that we

9:12

don't really have these deep conversations that was

9:14

used to. We first started dating totally normal,

9:16

but I can guarantee you that doesn't have

9:18

to be the norm. Many of us want

9:20

to get to know our wives. We want

9:23

to connect. We want to communicate. We want

9:25

to actually build intimacy through conversation. and it's

9:27

been awhile since we've usually done that. If

9:29

we've been married for any amount of time.

9:31

I know I went through the efforts in

9:33

the first ten years. My marriage, for what

9:35

I can tell you, is over the. Past

9:38

ten years, ah, my marriage has

9:40

gotten better and better and better.

9:42

And it's because I have become

9:44

a better conversationalist. And that's not

9:46

by just winging it. I had

9:48

to learn how to do it.

9:51

and now I'm actually going to

9:53

share this training with you guys.

9:55

It's completely totally free. It's called

9:57

Twenty Five Intimate Conversation Starters. It's

9:59

a. Video training as well as

10:01

a Pdf of twenty five intimate conversation

10:04

starters and questions to you and your

10:06

wife can go back and forth with

10:08

on a date night or just sitting

10:10

on the deck or just sipping a

10:13

glass of wine together. Whatever it is.

10:15

What I can say is if you

10:17

use these questions and will build intimacy

10:20

will build connection Ill create a deeper

10:22

connection with in your marriage. Head on

10:24

over to the data as.com forward/two five

10:26

questions again the that adds.com force Last

10:29

two five questions. Take the

10:31

video training download pdf, go back and

10:33

forth, use it as a conversation with

10:35

you and your wife and just enjoy

10:37

the connection or back to the show.

10:39

Another thing to here's here's number three:

10:43

Never. Underestimate the power of

10:45

small. Just. A few sentences:

10:47

tiny little posted notes just put in

10:49

very strategic places that you know she's

10:52

gonna find attacks. She's probably expecting a

10:54

card. She might be expecting a gift.

10:56

Maybe she's expecting to make dinner? Who

10:58

knows. But what she's not probably expecting

11:01

is defined. Me: Small little posted notes

11:03

that you've strategically put like on her

11:05

bathroom mirror. On. The dashboard of

11:07

her car inside of her you know

11:09

the shoes that she's probably going to.

11:11

Where did a put inside one of

11:13

her shoes writes something like that? We

11:15

it's are put in your wallet or

11:17

some actually post something to her phone

11:20

that still charging either next to her

11:22

bed or on the kids and or

11:24

whatever else but being very very strategic.

11:26

Of. Putting posted notes, Or. And

11:28

just acknowledge and appreciate something that you

11:30

love about her to one or two

11:32

sentences. That's all it takes but putting

11:34

them in places where you know she's

11:36

gonna find them throughout the day, so

11:39

that's another one. Another idea for tonight

11:41

is the haven't planned. We.

11:43

Had dinner rights now. Lot of us feel

11:45

that like man it's Valentine's day. maybe I

11:47

should take her out or but but then

11:49

one of the kid's gonna do hour or

11:52

five a baby sitter or maybe a cycle.

11:54

I gotta cook tonight. Was. really really cool

11:56

and fun and it also teaches our kids

11:58

is bringing the kids in to

12:00

the dinner making process. So

12:03

like one of the things I'm gonna be personally doing

12:05

tonight is I'm gonna have my kids, even

12:07

the littles, even the eight year old, and

12:09

even the 10 year old, they're gonna help. And

12:12

we are gonna cook dinner as a family while

12:15

mom just kinda chills. Jessica does

12:17

a lot of the cooking around here. Well tonight she's got the

12:19

night off. And she's gonna actually watch

12:22

us, not just me, but watch the entire family,

12:24

all of us men. We

12:26

are gonna be cooking dinner. Now the cool thing

12:28

about this, right, is that

12:30

the kids get a really cool lesson, number

12:32

one in cooking, but they also get a

12:35

really cool lesson in what it's like to

12:37

be selfless, right? And to do something nice

12:39

and kind for someone that you care about.

12:42

And make no mistake too, that if you have

12:44

a daughter or you have a son, it doesn't

12:46

really matter, but to see your,

12:49

for your son or daughter to see their

12:52

dad working in team,

12:55

getting a meal prep for the entire family,

12:57

that's an incredible lesson. That life

12:59

is much bigger than just them, right? And

13:01

we don't just cook for just the kids,

13:03

we're actually gonna cook for mom. So

13:06

that's another really cool idea is that if you

13:08

don't have dinner plans tonight and you're cooking anyway,

13:10

bring the kids into the mix, right, and

13:13

have them do their part. They are absolutely going

13:15

to love it. It might complain a little bit,

13:18

but I guarantee they will get the lesson and

13:20

they will absolutely love it. Another

13:22

thing too, if you

13:24

don't have a gift, right, for

13:26

today, which some of us don't

13:28

and that's okay, but you know what's really

13:30

cool is planning

13:33

and experience, right? So if you don't

13:35

have a gift today, one thing you

13:37

could do is you could plan

13:40

like a really small even staycation,

13:42

right? Where you make dinner reservations

13:44

for maybe later in the month

13:46

or even maybe even into March.

13:49

Like, hey, I Got us reservations at

13:51

this restaurant. We've been trying to get in for

13:53

so long. I've already got the babysitter hooked up.

13:55

She's staying the whole night or she's staying with

13:57

my mom or your mom or whatever. And

14:00

we're going to make this into a

14:02

staycation. Have already got the Mary out

14:04

reserved are invited dinner for have a

14:06

for have a few drinks. were gonna

14:08

add maybe take a dance class together.

14:10

I don't know, I'm just I'm I'm

14:12

giving guess my Ds here. But what

14:14

you wanna Do You want a plan?

14:16

Something ahead? the some both look forward

14:18

to that. Some experience rights a me.

14:20

meals are kind of like one and

14:22

dynamite. Take out to dinner or whatever

14:24

else but hail if I if on

14:26

Valentine's Day. We. Could give our

14:28

wives I case. I'm going to be taking

14:30

you out on March fifteenth. On. A stay

14:33

case. I know it's as a weekend or not, but I'm

14:35

have to count on March fifteenth. Here's what

14:37

we're doing. Here's our reservations. This is what

14:39

the night looks like. I cannot wait! It's

14:41

gonna be amazing. What you're basically doing is

14:43

not only does you give her a guest.

14:46

But. You're giving you. An.

14:48

Her. Something. To look forward

14:50

to for the next month. Here's your

14:52

the cool thing to. His. Ask:

14:55

You actually experience that? Is.

14:57

Gonna bring you closer and you can be

14:59

talking about for months after, So never underestimate

15:01

the power of like you don't necessarily need

15:04

a tangible gift right now. But.

15:06

I can give you a gift of

15:08

an experience that we're both looking forward

15:10

to. Said: don't forget down. Last

15:12

but not least this one was kind of

15:14

cool. I found this one online and I

15:17

thought it was like man this is really

15:19

interesting and I started thinking about a personally

15:21

so how would you ask your wife to

15:23

marry you. If. You had to

15:25

ask her to marry you again. Like so

15:27

right now. So I've been married now. This

15:30

is going to be my twenty first year

15:32

being married to Just Gifts and I think

15:34

back so many years ago in two thousand

15:36

and two when I actually asked her to

15:38

marry me and it was, it was and

15:41

a pretty normal engagement. By goes a pretty

15:43

normal proposal. I did do it on the

15:45

beach in Florida at sunset was at. that

15:47

was kind of course but it was the

15:49

words that I used. I wrote a letter

15:52

to her and I read her this letter

15:54

that as. A hadn't frame and

15:56

it. i thought it was kind of

15:58

a big deal at the time But if

16:00

I were to actually ask her to marry

16:02

me now, like what are the

16:05

things that I would actually say that would be

16:07

different, right? I would probably highlight

16:09

a lot of things about her personality

16:11

that I just absolutely can't live without,

16:13

right? I would also highlight our friendship.

16:15

The fact that she is my best

16:17

friend, the fact that she is the

16:19

person that I love spending time with

16:21

the most, like she's my workout buddy,

16:23

she's my hiking buddy, she's my partner

16:26

in crime, you know, she does this

16:28

whole parenting thing with me, and she's

16:30

a damn good mom at the same time. But

16:32

how would I reword a proposal to

16:35

her based on now 20 years

16:37

of being married to her? I thought that

16:39

was really, really cool. So think about that.

16:42

Again, if you are, if you're

16:44

in a situation today where

16:46

you're like, I just don't know what to do or what

16:48

to get, hopefully some of these ideas might

16:51

have sparked something in you. Obviously there's a ton of

16:53

other ideas, I don't wanna overwhelm you too many. But

16:56

again, never underestimate number one,

16:58

the power of a handwritten letter, right?

17:02

It goes far past just a card. You

17:04

can door dash like her favorite coffee, maybe

17:07

take her out to lunch or something

17:09

like that. You can also strategically put

17:11

notes in her car, in her shoe,

17:14

on the mirror of her bathroom, wherever, just

17:16

knowing that she's going to find them. Also,

17:20

bringing the kids into making a meal

17:22

for Valentine's Day. Basically it's you, it's

17:24

the kids, let her put her feet

17:27

up and just have a blast

17:29

cooking with your kids. Also, plan a

17:31

getaway. It doesn't have to be now. It can be a month

17:33

from now. It can be two months from now. It can even

17:35

be in the summer if you really want to. But

17:37

plan a getaway. You actually plan

17:40

the entire thing. She does nothing. All

17:42

she has to do is show up. But plan something

17:45

you guys can both look forward to. And

17:47

then if you were to ask her to marry you

17:49

all over again, what would

17:51

you say? What would be different? What

17:53

words would you use? What would you reflect upon over

17:56

the past one, two, five, 10,

17:58

15, 20 years? years of marriage that

18:01

you could bring into that proposal. Just

18:04

a few good ideas for you guys on

18:06

Valentine's Day. Hopefully this was helpful for you.

18:08

Hey listen to, if I've helped you in

18:10

any way on this podcast after now doing

18:12

it for nine years, almost 1150

18:14

episodes, if this has helped you in

18:16

any way, shape or form, what would

18:18

really be an incredible Valentine's Day gift

18:20

for me is if you head

18:23

on over to either iTunes or Spotify and

18:25

leave the data edge a rating and

18:27

review. I can't tell you how much

18:30

that means to me. It warms my heart

18:32

every time I see like just killer reviews. We

18:34

have almost 1300 reviews on iTunes. I

18:38

think we have another 2000 on Spotify, but

18:41

they really mean the world to me and

18:43

they mean the world to the movement. So thank

18:45

you guys so much for all that support. Hopefully

18:47

this was helpful for you guys. Go

18:49

out and have a legendary

18:51

Valentine's Day. Take care, Chuck.