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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of The Horsemanship Journey podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host. I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today.
Today, The Horsemanship Journey podcast is proud to present Charles Marshall. Charles is a clean comedian. I like the title, clean comedian. He's a professional speaker. He's also the author of several books, including I'm Not Crazy, But I Might Be a Carrier, The Good Dad Guide, and also The Seven Powers of Success and Shattering the Glass Slipper.
Charles is one of my personal favorite guests who was previously on The Horsemanship Journey Show before we started the podcast. Charles, thank you so much for taking your time to be with us today.
â100% my pleasure, Shane. Thank you for having me on.
âYeah, before we go on, I'm just gonna make sure it's okay with you, but I'd like to do my best Charles Marshall impression of the last time you were on The Horsemanship Journey. Ready?
âI donât hear enough Charles Marshall impressions, so I would love to hear one.
âHere we go. You've got to go through the rejection. You've got to fall flat on your face. You have to go through the failure and then just sit with it if you're going to reach your potential.
âThat is so scary good. I feel like I don't even need to go back out on the road anymore. I can just, you can do that. If I ever get sick, I'm just gonna say, "Hey, Shane, can you go? Can you go do the program?" That was scary good. I loved the inflections and you even adjusted the tone of your voice. That was amazing.
âSo today with our program Stable Living Coaching for Parents and Teens, today I wanted to focus on your book The Good Dad Guide, which I have my own personal signed copyâthank you very much, Charles Marshall. This is Seven Things That Matter Most to Your Kids. I've really enjoyed this book because it's so digestible. It's so easy to read, you know, because it's just like full of short stories. Each part is full of short stories of your own experiences and it's a laugh. I mean, it's a riot, backed up by these really solid principles.
So I've really enjoyed this. So just wanted to go through a few things. This is aâI think there's a lot of value here and that you bring a lot of important points in parenting. So just let you go, break right in with, you know, part one here is Provide. So take it, take it away.
âWell, thank you. I appreciate the kind words about the book. I'm proud of that book. And when I write, I write to make it easily read. So many nonfiction books, you're just laboring through them. So I believe in the power of the story.
One of the first stories I tell in the book is entitled The Tale of Two Laundrymen. We don't know it now, but if you look at the 1930 census, there are a lot of men's professions are listed as laundrymen. At the beginning of the Great Depression, there were gigantic laundry mats that everybody took their clothes to, and every town had one.
By gigantic, I mean the machines were very, very huge. Enough to put somebody inside. And my biological grandfather's profession was listed as a laundryman. He had five kids. His name was Fred Kids Bailey, ironically. He had five kids with my grandmother and they were in Macon, Georgia.
And the stories are murky, the stories are uncertain. They say that what we do know is that at one point during the Great Depression, he just disappeared. He walked away, leavingâexcuse meâhis five little kids and wife to fend for themselves.
The more kind people say that maybe he went looking for a job and went out to Kansas looking for a job as a lineman. There's some rumors that he was murdered in a back alley over gambling debts. Another sure thing was he was an inveterate alcoholic. He was a drinker, and he was just not a good guy and wound up finally just leaving his wife and kids to fend for themselves.
Meanwhile, there's another laundryman who also worked in that area. His name was Pops Wheeler. And one day at work while he was in the laundry mat, there was a mechanic in one of the huge dryers. Somebody accidentally switched on the switch of that dryer, and the mechanic started tumbling around inside the dryerâwhich meant easily a broken limb, quite possibly a broken neck. That had happened before.
And the guy's tumbling around. Pops Wheeler acted quickly. He took his arm and he jammed it into the spinning wheel while they grabbed out the mechanic. And unfortunately, his arm got stuck. And this is very graphicâI hate saying this on your podcastâbut his arm was quite literally ripped off his body.
So in the Great Depression, when it was so important to be marketable for a job, he only had one arm. But he met the widowâmy grandmotherâand they hit it off. And he became the dad that my biological grandfather wasn't. He provided for that family even though he had one arm and tried toâhe took any kind of job he could.
The point of that story is: you get to choose what kind of person you want to be. And people remember it generations later. It's a man's first jobâa dad's first jobâto provide for his kids. I firmly believe that. Provide materially, yes, but also provide encouragement for them.
My son, when he was little, he was a very serious little guy. He just came into the world, he had colic the first four months of his life, and we were trying to work with him after that. He looked just very serious. So I took it upon myself to communicate to him that this world is a pretty good place, and it's a great thing to be here, and we're glad to have you here, buddy.
And now he's got a great sense of humor. He's got a balanced sense of life. He stillâhe has the ability to be a deep thinker. But yeah, so provision is the first thing I think a dad has to think about. And I think that's hardwired into most men unless there's some dysfunction in the man. And that's quite common as well.
âYeah, it may be hardwired into most men. You know, it seems like it might be wired into most men, but I mean, it's just such a basic concept. But there's a lot of kids out there that don't have a Pop Wheeler. You know, they don't have that provider in their life. And so, I mean, and even as for those of us that endeavor to be or have been good providers that we feel like we have, I mean, I think it's still an importantâI think it's important just to acknowledge that as being a role of a dad.
The next thing you talk about in part two is participate. So you want to talk a little bit about participation?
âYeah, just to the last point, you're absolutely right. It is kind of aâit does seem more common that a lot of people are checked out of their parenting these days, and it's usually because of some kind of dysfunctionality. Might be a generational curse where their father was checked out and they're just repeating what they learned, or it could be substanceâsubstance abuse, or it could be a distraction.
So yeah, participation is mighty, mighty important. I was having a conversation with the guys at a barbecue. We're all sitting around, and we were just talking about being dads. And when my little guyâI work from home when I'm not on the roadâand nobody enjoys changing a diaper. Let me just get that on the record.
But when my little guy needed changed, I made sure that I was part of that because that can be a real moment of connection. And I would, you know, play with his feet and sing, Rolling, rolling, rolling, keep those doggies rolling, whatever, to keep those wagons rolling. And we would just laugh and weâd tickle. And it was just a time of connection and little things, just making sure you're being there.
A lot of the thingsâat that same barbecue I had one guy brag about, he goes, "I've never changed a diaper in my life." I go, "Never? Not once?" And he goes, "Yep. I have my wife. She does all the diaper changing." He was proud of that fact. I couldn't help but feel sorry for him because, you know, there are just momentsâany moment you can take to participate in your kid's life is so valuable.
My kidâmy sonâmy youngest just turned 21 last week. And man ,it just goes by quickly. If you don't take every opportunity to participate and be there and be present, you're missing it.
One thing that people used to complain aboutâand maybe I was one of them, Shane, I don't knowâbut they used to complain about the purple dinosaur, Barney, and just the syrupy silliness that show had. I don't even know if it's still on, but there's a momentâmy daughter used to watch it; she's older than my sonâthere was a moment at the end of each show where they all gathered, the characters gathered around, they held hands, and they would go, I love you, you love me⌠They're singing this little song.
And every single time I could, if I was in my office and I heard that song, I ran into the living room, I grabbed my daughterâs hand, and we stood there and we sang that song. And itâs something she still remembers. Then when my son came along, we did it with him too. So is it silly? Yeah. But is it dumb? Yeah. But man, it's your jobâit's the dad's job and the parent's jobâto enter into their world and meet them where they are. Participate with them where they are.
Thereâs so much more on that. I'm aware of our time limitation. I don't wannaâI could go full bore on any one of these subjects, but the last point I can say on that one: you know, a dad brings something. I donât care what personality you have.
The dads areâin the past, and I know you know this, Shaneâthe dadâs role in the family has been minimized, and the thought has been, you know, Mom pretty much can handle it. And it's just been minimized. But he's so important. The dad is so important. What he bringsâthat masculinity, that fatherhoodâand that fatherhood really, and this is going toâthis mightâI don't know who watches your show, but this might go down poorly in some areasâbut that fatherhood and the measure of how the connection of the child to the dadâboy and girl, especially girl, in my opinionâhas everything todo with the mate that they choose in the future. How well connected they feel. How healthy that relationship was. So it's so important to participate in your young people's and your kids' lives.
âYeah.
âI'm giving you a moment to say something.
âYeah. Charles, I'm so glad that youâyeah. I'm glad that you chose the diaper war story and thatâthat's the little story that you related about the diapers, as far as participation, because it really struck a chord with me.
Because, you know, you were talking about being at the barbecue and thereâs a guy saying, you know, heâs never changed the diaper. And for a fleeting moment, I thought, wow, how lucky.
âBut then I read the next sentence and you said how you thought about it and you felt sorry for this guy. And I started to reflect, and I mean, it really hit home with me that regardless of theâyou know, this can be about a diaper or notâbut what you're saying is, the point of this that I took was is regardless of the kid's age, those special moments that you're willing to take time with to participate in your lives is justâit is tremendous. I mean, the result that we can get. So appreciate that.
I'll let you move right along here to prepare, as the next section is Prepare.
âYou know, I come, I think you probably can tell this from the book, but I come from a faith perspective and a lot of that means character is really, really important.
When my little girl was probably around two, she had a favoriteâI think her aunt and her grandmother sent her, maybe both her aunts and grandmother sent herâa little white teddy bear and it had a little rattle in it. So we started calling it Shakey Bear. It was a girl. We would talk with Shakey Bear, and whenever she'd go to bed, she had to have Shakey Bear. Shakey Bear was everything.
But over a couple of years with that kind of usage, Shakey Bear was kind of starting to look rough. She had kind of been chewing on one of the ears. I forget what it was, the ears were kind of tearing off. So her mother and I would try to be people of vision. So we thought when Shakey, if Shakey dies too soon, we're gonna have a real problem. Because Shakey was everything.
So we got an idea. We got online, we found another Shakeyâa brand new Shakey Bearâexactly the same. The only difference I think, it had a different color and foot patch. And while she was taking a nap one day, we swapped out the Shakeys hoping she wouldn't notice. But she's a sharp young lady. She's a sharp little girl back then. And so when she woke up, she goesâI think we were changing her, we were around herâand she goes, this doesn't look like Shakey.
I guess maybe she was three because she could talk. She goes, is this Shakey? And her mother and I were just going, it looks like Shakey, doesnât it? We were going, what about Shakey? We were doing anything but just out and out lying to her.
But we have made a decision and we've stuck with it. We have never, ever lied to our kids. We've always told the truth. Now, mind you, we haven't gone full disclosure. That's just notâthat's not good parenting either. There are things that we have kept from them or there are times that are more appropriate and things that are more appropriate for a child later or maybe never. They shouldn't know certain things.
But in terms of character, in terms of the way we live our life, we've always been honest. And I believe what that does is it engenders trust. It teaches them trust. So when I do say something to herâwhen I do say something to her about her Heavenly Fatherâthere's no, I havenât been kidding with her. I havenât been deceiving her in any other way. So she knows that I am telling the truth.
I think that's extremely, extremely important. So I think that's part of the preparation. You got to prepare them for the rest of their lives. It's our job as parents to not just co-exist with them, to cohabitate and just be in the same dwelling as them, but to actually be preparing them for life. That means them seeing you at your best and seeing you at your worst.
I remember one time we were taking a family trip to the Atlanta Aquarium. We used to live in Atlanta, and we got outâwe were getting out of the carâand somebody, either my daughter or my wife or somebody, took the car door and opened it and dinged like a 700 series BMW right next to us.
And I just wentâI just needed a minute. I said, okay, hold on a second. I walked off, I prayed, because that was a moment that they will remember for the restâthe possibility of them remembering it for the rest of their lives. And so I went back and I told them, it's okay, stuff happens. And we wrote a note and we put it on the windshield of the BMW and said, hey, we just did this, so sorry, just let us know, we'll make it right.
And they got to see that, but it was hard. It cost me something. It cost me, because that is not what my first reaction was. But I believe in taking a moment.
But I think alsoâI wrote another book. You might have it, Shane, I don't know if I gave it to you. I hope I did. I wrote another book called The Seven Powers of Success. And it's just a success book. By just a success book, I mean, it's all the things that I wish somebody had told me before I had gone out into the world.
We talk aboutâin that book I talk aboutâthe power of choice, the power of vision, the power of action, the power of mind (programming your mind correctly), the power of character, the power of failure, and the power of belief. Believing in yourself, believing in other people, and investing in a healthy worldview.
When my kids were little, when that book came out, that was their summer job. Their summer job was to read a chapter of The Seven Powers and turn in a book report, and I gave them some money for it. And they slowed down about halfway through the book. And so I said, you know what, it's time for a raise. And I raised their money a little bit.
And they learned those principles. Now they can converse in that language and they think in terms of having a vision. They think in terms of learning from their failure. So yeah, it's our job to prepare our kids as well.
âI did get a copy of that book and I appreciate it and I do recommend The Seven Powers. It was also an excellent book.
I just wanted to say a quick comment on the telling the truth about the bear. A lot of times, I think it's just such an important point that you chose to not necessarily, like you said, not to tell children everything all the time, but to be honest about things because of what you statedâbecause in the future, I want you to believe me about what I say about this.
I mean, it seems so elementary, I mean, it's just, it's a great point. And it really makes sense of why, you know, it's like the why in it. Super. That's why these little stories are so powerful in this book.
Tell us about protection.
âWell, this next story is emotional for me. It's not my own, thank God. But back in May of 2011, this is a story written in infamy in Joplin, Missouri forever. An E5 tornado ripped through the entire town and leveled it. I live in Springfield right now, Springfield, Missouri, about 45 minutes away, and it's very much, that incident is very much alive and in the consciousness of the people around it, in this area.
But on that afternoon, a man and his wife, Edie and Rusty Howard, were eating with their five-year-old daughter, Harley, and their 19-month-old son, named Hayes or Hazy. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Then she worked at the hospital. She had to leave and dad was going to take them home and that's when the tornado hit.
Dad was thinking quick. He knew he needed to get somewhere. So he decided to pull into a Home Depot real quick and he carried both of his kids and the, unfortunately, the Home Depot collapsed and they were found in the debris later. The newspaper, this is such a difficult story for me to get through, but the newspaper basically reported that the children were found in their father's arms. He was still holding on.
I talk to guys sometimes when I'm out and about and they'll tell me that their kids, I'll ask them about their family and something happened between the guy and his wife. I'm thinking of a specific story and I go, well, where are your kids? Well, they're so and so and I don't see them hardly ever. My ex-wife is real mean and she won't let me see them and I'm going, it's dad's job to hold on no matter what, especially when the winds blow. Especially in an E5.
When an E5 hits your life, that's when your kids need you the most. That's when you need your kids. You need to hold on to one another. So yeah, that protection, it can be physical.
I met another guy, I was speaking at a church, First Baptist Church of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and a father kind of hobbled up to me, he had a limp, he hobbled up to me after the program, and he had his daughter with him, I would estimate her to be like 14, 15 years old, and he said, Charles, I remember you talking about fatherhood, and I wanted to introduce you my daughter.
This is Cindy, I don't remember her name, and I changed it for the book anyway, but he goes, this is Cindy. And Cindy kind of was doing that shy teenage thing. She was half embarrassed that her dad was doing this and half proud or half blessed that he thought so much of her. And he told me this little story. Do I have time for a story? I don't know how we're doing on our time, Shane.
âYou're good, yeah, let's hear it.
âOkay. He said that when he was, when Cindy was little, maybe about two or three years old, he was out in the yard doing some yard work and he misplaced her for a minute. And I don't know about you, Shane, but it's hard. It's hard taking care of kids, because I've noticed you can watch them all day long and they don't move, but you take your eyes off them for like two or three hours and they're gone.
Have you ever noticed that? It's hard. But he didn't take his eyes off her for two, three hours. He took his eyes off her for a couple of minutes. He started yelling, Cindy, Cindy. And looked over and he heard her voice going, hey daddy. And she was standing in the middle of the road waving, hey daddy.
But what she didn't see and the dad did is she didn't see a panel truck bearing down on her. And he could tell by the speed and the direction of the truck that the truck had, the driver of truck had no idea that she was standing in the middle of the road. He told me he didn't even remember thinking. He just ran as fast as he possibly could and he dove and he pushed her out of the way.
And you'll be gratified to know that she escaped any injuries, save a couple of scrapes and bruises. And he almost did too, but he, I think his left foot, from the knee down, left shin got caught under the wheels on the far side. And he pulled up his pant leg, he showed me his leg and it looked like, here's a dated reference for you, it looked like a Rand McNally map, if you remember those, with the lives all over it. It had scar all over him. And he showed me, he said, Charles, this is where the screw went in right here. And this is where the pins went in. And this whole part was shattered. It was pulverized.
And he laughed. He said, I'm one of the first people that knows when it's going to rain. And he made light of it. He wasn't a real tough guy. And he was happy about it. And I thought about it later. I go, why was he so happy? He wasn't a macho guy. That's so important to the nature of the story. He wasn't bragging. He was just a regular dad type guy.
He was smiling though and I thought about that, why was that? And I realized later that it was because he liked the deal he made. In his mind, he made a good deal. One leg, one functioning leg for one daughter. And you get the, and I got the impression from talking to him that he would make that deal again in a second.
Good dads, and all of us have our good dad days and our bad dad days. It's not a binary description. We all get to make that decision every day, but to be a good dad is to protect your kids no matter what. But also, if I may, not just protect them physically, but protect their souls, protect their innocence.
Man alive, I feel like we need more of this in our country because our kids, I can't say this strongly enough, our kids are prey, P-R-E-Y, prey to the powers that be. Just if you don't know it already, look into it.
But I had a friend one time back in college and he was a dear friend, and one night we were talking and it just got real. And he broke down crying. And he told me that back in his country, he was from a South American country. His father didn't live with the family, but he came around, he hardly ever saw him, but he came around on his 16th birthday and he told him to get in the car.
My young friend just kind of hopped in the car. This was new. His father hardly ever paid any attention to him. But he, so he's wondering where he went. His father was of a disreputable character and he drove him straight to a brothel. And his present to his 16 year old boy was to have his innocence robbed of him in that manner.
I'm not going into any further detail because I, you I don't know what age of people watch the show, but so is rather than⌠And no doubt in his father's mind, he thought he was really doing something for his son, but to his son, it was a very traumatic and emotionally. It was it was a crass thing. It was crude and it just violated him. It was a violation.
It's our job to watch what movies are kids, pay attention to what movies our kids are watching. Pay attention to what kind of exposure they have on the internet. Make sure that they have guards because it makes a difference in the person that they turn out to be, in the success of their future life. So yeah, it's absolutely our job to protect our kids. Watch over them.
âSuch an important one. Thank you for going through that. Powerful. What do you mean by promote? Tell us about that one. Promote.
âI love the promotion one.
Promote, promote. This is an an an active. This isâthe protect was trying to keep from, the promote is sowing seeds into. Promote. One of the things I was really fortunateâmy father wasâI was one of the younger kids in the family, and my father was a World War II vet. He was a college football player. He was a man's man. He was a tough guy, but we had affection in our family. My dad hugged me up until the months before he died. He had a stroke, but he took me with his one arm. And everyone in my family will tell you the feeling of being crushed in one of my dad's hugs just because he loved fiercely. He was a manly guy and strong even to the end with that one arm.
I wrote an article in that section called Old Spice and Whiskers. My dad was an Old Spice guy. There was a moment of time in my 20's where I thought, you know what, I'm a man now. I think I'll go for some Old Spice. And I bought some and I put it on. Gave myself a good dousing and it was awesome for about the first 15 seconds, but then it started getting stronger and I wasâand the thought occurred, I don't think I'm man enough to wear this stuff. It startedâI started to black out at one point because it was just soâit's a strong, strong cologne and you have to be manly to put that stuff on. And I was at one point I was thinking I was gonna have to have some sort of radiation therapy to get it off of me. I thought maybe by the timeâand now I'm much older. Soâand it's almost faded now. So it's strong stuff.
But having said that, it's hard for me to associate my father and not think about Old Spice and man. And he hadâI've grown a little bit. I don't know if you can see it, cause I got so much gray in it, but I've grown a little bit⌠My father was clean shaven, but he had a sandpapery face. And I just rememberâI remember he'd kiss me on my cheek and he'd hug me. And man, what would I give? What would I give for one of those sandpaper kisses and to smell that Old Spice again today?
So he promotedâhe set the standardâmy mom and dad set the standard for healthy affection. Again, it's about what the comfort level of that stuff in your kids when they go out and have their own family.
I recently made a postâand if you allow me to, I think my Instagram is CharlesMarshallComedian and I think my Facebook is either CharlesMarshallSpeaker or CharlesMarshallComedian. This Facebook is very, very active. The Instagram is too, but the Facebook has close to about 52,000 people following, and I post things every day except Sunday. And one of the memes I just posted was: when you're young, when you're young, you don't have kids, you are the movie star. You're the star in the movie of your life. It's all about you and it's awesome.
But when you have kids, you're fortunate if you ever get a speaking part again. You're done with being the star. When I die, when the credits roll on my life, it's gonna be: guy who drove car, guy who handed out money. I kid that my kids would argue with me about that. But the point isâand I've known parents that didn't get thisâthe point is, it's not about you. It's not that. Being a parent is about beingâpromoting them, making sure that it's about them.
And their needs will dictate a lot of that. But there are other times where you have to just initiate. And I didâwhen my daughter was young, we did the daddy-daughter dates. And I just didn't want to miss that. We went to daddy-daughter dances. I took them on business trips with me. Not enough. I wish I'd done more.
But you're gonnaâI made this point earlierâthe person they wind up with has a lot to do with their relationship with you. I think one of the most important words that a parent can know is relevance. If you're not relevant in your child's lifeâand we might talk about that some more in a minute in one of the other twoâbut if you're not relevant, you shouldn't expect to have impact. You shouldn't expect for them to value your input and the wisdom that you're passing on.
But I think, speaking of passing on, I'm looking at our time. I don't know how much more time we have, Shane, because I don't want to go over our time.
âYou're doing just right. We kind of wanted just to get comments on your last two parts of your book, which are Prevent and Persist. So, yeah, just take them one at a time or take them together. Go ahead.
âYeah.
Sure, the prevention is preventing the dysfunction. I knew a man that I connected with back in the early 2000s. And I remember asking him, well, tell me about your kids. And he had let his addiction drive him away from his family. He was separated from his wife at that point. He was a full-on alcoholic and he lost everything. He lost everything. He lost the house, lost the wife, lost the kids, lost everything. Eventually lost his life.
And I remember asking, well, tell me about your kids. And he goes, because it's been years since I've seen any of them. He goes, well, I remember once that when my little boy, when he was like four years old, he said, and I go, okay, okay, that's good. And then he shared another, but all his stories, all his, everything he had to say about his kids were from 10 or 15 years before. And he really didn't know his kids.
He had allowed his external circumstances to dictate his degree of involvement. I know a lot of guys do that with working. I met this one guy at an event named Gary and Gary was in construction. Now we took the  alcoholic but Gary's, you know, out there in construction. He's not doing anything bad. He's working to provide for his family but he was on the road over 300 days a year.
He said that his wife had, about a year before, his wife had given him an ultimatum and said, you can keep â and he was making, I should add, he was making fabulous money. They had it all, the big house, nice cars, they had everything. But his wife had given him an ultimatum. It's either me and the kids or the job.
He said the next day, he turned in his notice and he took a worse job because he didn't want to lose the thing that's most important in life. So the point of that is to not let your other involvements prevent the disconnection with your family by...
Let me go one step further here. If you're disconnected from your kids, they're gonna grow up, chances are, aside from intervention or a miracle, they're gonna grow up as disconnected people. Your daughter, since your absence, she will always be looking typically â typically, I'm no psychologist, but this is what I've read â she will be looking for that father figure. She'll be looking for that man or she will choose a man who is not available emotionally or is not available to her. That is going to be â and the guy, the boy, typically winds up being that person too.
But I wanted to mention this point before I move on. Promoteâ and this is about promoting their health, promoting them, you know, a healthy mindset. I had another friend whose dad always â they played basketball, they played cards, they played baseball, they played kickball. The dad came to win.
Playing a five or six year old, the dad always crushed. And his attitude was, I'm teaching you to be tough. The world's tough out there. But what she learned, she learned cruelty. She learned that there's a â she learned that her father, that authority was tough and hard. And she learned resentment.
Well, people ask me, and I had to come up with my own rule. This is up to you. But when you're playing your kids, you can't let them win all the time. That's not right. Nor can you win all the time. You say, Charles, what was your formula? My formula was two thirds of the time I win. One third they win.
I think it's important to let them have a little bit of enjoyment of the game. You're not there to crush them. The point of playing a game with your kid is your connection.
So is that a deception? Yeah, but it's true to the philosophy of winning the real game, which is connecting with a kid.
And then finally, persisting. When it gets hard â I mentioned that a little bit already â but kids spell love, T-I-M-E. Kids spell love, T-I-M-E.
Relevance, persisting no matter what. And you know what? If you're â I grew up and I grew up in a family of five and I learned to â I learned one of my strengths was humor and I learned to get attention through humor. And I learned to get approval through humor. And I got acceptance through humor.
But one of the first rules of leadership â have you ever seen, just nod at me, have you seen any episodes of The Office with Michael Scott? I mean, Michael Scott is the boss and his first desire is to be liked. Michael's first job is to be liked. And they portray him as a successful boss, but if you're gonna be the boss, if you're gonna be the parent, you have to say bye-bye to always being liked.
It is not your job to always being liked. You're gonna have to be â you're gonna have to be the bad guy sometimes. You're doing your job if you say no. No, we're not gonna watch that movie. No, you're not going over there. No, we're not gonna leave until you do your homework. No, you told me we were gonna work in the yard and so that's not gonna change.
I'm not saying being inflexible, but having standards. Kidsâ we're all more secure when we have boundaries. I'm sure you've heard that story of that study they did where they studied a group of kids in a playground without a fence and all the kids tended to stay toward the center of the playground. Whereas the playground with the fence, the kids would explore all areas of that area.
So we're like that. So persisting in setting boundaries, persisting in supporting them.
The last â I used to talk about this all the time, I don't much anymore, but I used to tell the story of Bill Porter, a man, a hero really, with cerebral palsy who became an incredible door-to-door salesman.
But one of his secrets to success is his mom used to pack his lunch every day. And in his lunch, the thing that he looked forward to wasn't necessarily the pudding or the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The thing he looked forward to was a little handwritten note from his mom saying, âYou're incredible. Go get them today, Bill.â
Everything â every day saying something a little, just encouraging them. Just again, taking the time to encourage and persist in that vision and that goal of turning your people and your responsibility, may I say, you're turning them into presentable adults that people like spending time with.
We did this thing. We got this from Tim Tebow's book. My wife found out about this. We did this thing. It was amazing. Amazing.
When we were at dinner, we told our kids, we will give you $1 every time somebody compliments you in public on your behavior. And you should have seen these kids at the restaurant when the waitress or the waiter came by, the server came by, they would be saying, âYes, ma'am. I'm ready to order. Do you have any Coca-Cola products?â
And the waitresses and waitress were like, what? We never  see this. It's true my kids were motivated by the cash and it worked. They were just awesome people and they still are. They're 21 and 23 now and they are very socially adept and they... I'm very, very proud of who they've become.
âCharles, I appreciate that. We've made it through. I mean, this has been a really good sample of, you know, I think what really resonates with people when you speak is, you know, the people laugh and behind those laughs is this, you know, just really solid principles and conviction about your ideas.
And this book is, The Good Dad Guide, is just chuck-full of just these anecdotes, these short stories. It's a great read. I highly recommend it. Also, yes, I have read your book, The Seven Powers of Success, and I recommend that too.
I appreciate that. I think people can see why you're in demand as a speaker and a comedian. I guess just to wrap it up here.
Last thoughts, what would you like to leave this with today on The Horsemanship Journey podcast, Charles?
âYou know, I wanna make it clear that, you know, when you write a book like this, the word âguideâ can make it sound like I'm wagging my finger. I don't approach it that way at all. I'm a dad, I've made horrible mistakes too. I've opened my big mouth when I shouldn't have, I've fussed when I shouldn't have, I've done things wrong.
So I wrote that book to be an encouragement to dads. And truthfully to moms as well. Moms find it a good read as well I'm told.
But we're all just on a journey. We're all on a, we're all heading down the road and I see my job is just a fellow traveler calling over to the side of people, hey watch out for that pothole or look out there's a sharp turn on the way. We're all on that on a journey.
My job and the job of this book is just to try to encourage those folks who and remind people that this is the biggest calling in my opinion, bigger than writing books, bigger than making videos.
The biggest thing in my life is being a dad to those kids. It doesn't get any, you're never gonna have more impact than you will as a parent. You're never gonna affect people's lives more than being a parent.
There's so many more stories that come to mind, but love for folks to pick that up. And I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to ramble on a bit about some principles that are very important to me.
âCharles, you mentioned Facebook and Instagram. You got that big robust following on Facebook. Is that the best place to find you? The website, where can people find out about your best way?
âIt is. You can also go to CharlesMarshall.net. That's my corporate website. But the Facebook or the Instagram that I'm on there every single day. If you want to email me, ask questions or get product, my products are on Amazon. You can look them up on Amazon if you want them. Find them on my website and really find some funny, post a lot of funny stuff on Facebook. That's all Facebook and Instagram are for, just the funny stuff.
âRight on. Charles, thank you again for taking the time to be with us today and thank you for listening. Remember, you cannot fail as long as you Don't Ever Stop Chasin It.
