Craig, Florida
We sit in the most professional Florida-Man space I’ve ever been in. A permanent, yet somehow still makeshift, open air office on the back pool deck of Craig’s house. With the water features going in the pool it’s impossible to be anything but relaxed in the environment.
The backyard beyond, usually a superstructure of beams, rope and harnesses that would make cirque du soleil proud, is uncharacteristically empty as Craig and his family prepare to move into a new home soon.
I worked with Craig early in my career as a sales professional. There was a time when we spent an unhealthy amount of time together every day driving around as a 2 man sales team. That we spent 40 hours a week in close proximity to each other for the better part of a year, and are still able to maintain a friendship after the fact, should be studied by NASA for future missions to Mars.
Craig is one of the greater systematic minds I’ve ever met, so I was excited to dive into a topic that we’d somehow never fully explored in all our long hours together.
This interview has been edited down from its original transcript…
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Micah
What makes a good dad? When you see one in the world, what characteristics, what traits, what's he doing?
Craig
I think it's a lot of different things. You're a good dad if you do some things, but don't do other things, you know? Is there, like, a dad score… “I got a negative twelve here, so I got an 88, that makes me a B-dad,” kind of thing? I don’t know.
Micah
It's a shame you're not analytical.
Craig
Yeah, yeah… ok, it takes presence, it takes discipline, it takes a lot of other things. I think it starts with understanding who your kid is, right? People like you and I are always processing, we need data.
[Wife] helped me with this using the Enneagram Test, and it helps a lot. There are numbers, 1 through 9, and it helps explain your personality. You’ll have your number, and then you'll have a wing one way or another. I've done a hundred of these stupid personality tests working in sales, and I was never really big into them, but [Daughter]’s test is really the one that kind of opened my eyes, because she's the same number as [Wife].
[Wife] was able to help me understand the ways that [Son] and I are very similar. So my parenting style would have always worked with [Son], just naturally me being me, right? But with [Daughter], it's a whole different ballgame. She's about connection, she's about emotion.
Do you know the show “Win or Lose?” It's unbelievable. It's one of [Daughter]’s favorite shows. It’s centered around sports and takes metaphors for what's going on emotionally with the characters and shows them physically. Like the umpire has this armor that covers him like a shield when bullets come at him from the crowd.
There was one that perfectly described [Daughter]. Whenever she makes a play they show her floating and there she goes. And then something happens and someone cuts her down and she starts sinking into the ground. That is [Daughter]. I didn’t understand why my parenting method brought her vibe down, and [Wife] helped me understand what I was doing in those moments to sink her into the ground.
The way I approach things with [Son] is very direct, “this is what you're supposed to do, you did not do the right thing.” But for [Daughter] it's more like, “help me understand your heart, what's going on in your heart that would make you have that reaction,” and when you don't do that she does what we call “blue zone,” which is where she can shut down and isolate. She's type three which are natural connectors so it's very much against her nature to go run away.
You can pursue her and say, “hey, stop acting like that,” and she'll come out and she'll pretend but she's not actually present, she's not actually there.
So back to the original point, “what makes a good dad?” The presence of mind to identify that it's not “one-size-fits-all,” you have to understand yourself enough to know how you communicate and adapt to how your child is and how they best engage.
Micah
30,000 feet looking down, what's the philosophy that drives your decision-making as a dad? What are you trying to instill in your kids?
Craig
Number one, God. The only thing that truly matters is, Jesus.
Beyond that, I think about this all the time. Trying to get them to achieve their goals, and then hopefully opening their eyes to new ones. Again, every kid is different. [Step Daughter], my biggest fear for her is that her biggest dreams for her life are just still not big enough. So for her it’s to help her see like, “hey, there's so much more to life.” It's okay to fail, but it’s not ok to not dream. You have to take a swing.
Micah
I don't remember what study it was or where I heard it originally, but I remember reading that they surveyed a bunch of people that were nearing death asking them, “what would you change?” Almost everything was not, “I wish I HADEN’T done,” it was always, “I wish I HAD done.” They regret not doing way more than the things they screwed up trying to do. Screwing things up, that’s just life.
Craig
But then there's the other side with [Daughter], where you're like, “hey, you need a temper expectations.”
Micah
So she wants to be president of the moon?
Craig
No, it's just like, I always tell her, there's an art to negotiation. Whenever you get pissed because you didn't get every single thing you wanted, nobody's going to want to negotiate with you anymore. So, if you get 75% of what you were trying to go for, be happy about it. Just walk away and maybe try another day for that last 25%. Showing them right now that you're unhappy about that missing 25%, well then they’re never going to want to give you that first 75%.
With [Son], it's different. Mentally, he has all the potential in the world, but he's like me. So what is it going to take for him to figure it out in life? He's going to have to be a planner. He's going to have to figure out what he's doing tomorrow, today. That's what's gonna make him successful.
With [Step Son], it's just teaching him to fight. Just teaching him to be a fighter. Like, you've got all the skills in the world, man, you've got all of it, just go out and do it. Even in sports, it's the “want to,” the aggression.
I just had a conversation yesterday. Like, “dude, you've been the fastest kid since you were in fourth grade. And you're freaking huge. Soccer, okay, I get it. Dudes can blow by every now and then and trick you. Yeah. Here's the thing, though. You can catch them and make it really difficult for them before they even get to the next level. That's what it's all about. You're bigger than them, play aggressively, because guess what, if you play too aggressively they're gonna tell you.”
And then he's like, “and then I can just turn it down a little bit?” And I was like, “exactly, and just go a little bit less, and it's not a big deal.”
So that's the hard part with this question, it all depends on which kid are we talking about.
Micah
Let's talk about why you are the way you are a little bit. Tell me about your dad. What do you think your dad was trying to instill in you?
Craig
It would be God and Jesus, number one, two, and three.
Micah
Give me the underlying reason. He wanted you to live a good life? He wanted you to…?
Craig
I think it starts with my grandfather. When my dad was 11 my grandpa moved here, and they bought a five-acre piece of property. When my dad got married my grandpa gave him an acre of property on the back of that land and he's lived there ever since. I think that’s allowed him to be more carefree.
But also, grandpa was born in 1912, and he was born into a situation where he was the oldest of like seven or eight kids. When he was 12, his mom died. It was pretty much like, “hey [Grandpa], it's time to quit school, you’ve got to take care of the family.” So to him things like sports were frivolous. “You want me to go to your little league game? No, that’s just nonsense.”
So my dad's more of a strong, silent type as a result, but again, also lives most of his life in a carefree kind of way. He’s an awesome guy, he's a fun guy, he is a lot like me but without my aggression.
Micah
What do you feel you've pulled forward from your dad that is the most impactful to your life?
Craig
It’s faith, there’s no doubt. Even now he teaches Sunday school.
And that he went from getting out of high school and working in construction most of my childhood, but when I was in elementary school he decided to go back to college to get his teaching degree. He taught middle school for like, 25 years. That transition was always such a big deal. My parents did everything in their power to push their kids’ lives a step forward, where I was able to have a different life.
Micah
What are some of your most proud moments as a father?
Craig
Honestly, I love creating stuff and then watching my kids enjoy that stuff.
Micah
It looks like your backyard parkour set came down in preparation for the move I see. Is that kind of what you're getting at though? Something like that.
Craig
Yeah, we're already scheming and designing what we can do next in crazy ways. Just like that idea of creating fun. You know the ultimate goal is to be the house that the kids want to come to.
[Son] will have one of his best friends, if not his best friend, two houses away from our new place. It's perfect. I’m excited about what is possible in the backyard because I have these humongous trees and they're all in a set path where if I have one central pole I can create a tent structure.
Micah
Awesome, you like physically building creative and fun things and then the pride comes when your kids are playing on them with their friends.
If I were to ask your kids one day, “what was your father trying to instill in you?” What would you hope they would say?
Craig
Obviously God is always at the heart of everything. I hope when they look back they say, “he taught us a lot of things, but more than anything he demonstrated the way to be.”
Sustained, embedded joy. The understanding that to get to the freedom you have to go through some shit. Working through things, and having tools to navigate things. The tools to navigate relationships. These things are all very tricky and complex, and most adults don't know how to deal with conflict. Giving them those tools so that way, when they get into their own relationships in life, they can utilize those tools in a way that gives them healthy outcomes.
And how to just be nice to people. How to be there for people.
[Son] is in middle school now where people are... just assholes for all kinds of reasons. They are to him. My heart breaks for all the stuff that he has to hear and go through. But like, I am suited, specifically, perfectly to be there for him… because I went through everything that he’s going through. And I know what that crap is like.
