361 | Top 10 DadAwesome Discoveries in 2024 (Jeff Zaugg)
Episode Description
As the year wraps up, we’ve pulled together the Top 10 DadAwesome Discoveries to help you grow as an intentional, empowered father. This rapid-fire list includes books, boot camps, breath prayers, and more! Tune in, take notes, and get inspired to level up your fatherhood journey.
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Jeff Zaugg is the founder of DadAwesome and Fathers for the Fatherless, two ministries that resource and rally dads through engaging podcasts and 100-mile bike rides. Jeff and his wife, Michelle, have been married for eighteen years and are parents to four daughters.
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· Practice simple breath prayers to refocus on God’s presence, and train your children to do the same.
· Invest time in a fatherhood booklet or online course to gain practical skills and powerful insights.
· Get out of your comfort zone with a fitness group, father-daughter trip, or transformational weekend adventure.
· Use thought-provoking books to spark meaningful conversations with your kids about perseverance, compassion, and faith.
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· Breath Prayers Reel | Justin Whitmel Earley
· 40 Breath Prayers to Help You Connect with God Anytime, Anywhere
· You Have What It Takes: What Every Father Needs to Know Paperback by John Eldredge
· First Bloom Father Daughter Adventure
· Apply to join the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort: Email awesome@dadawesome.org
· Way of the Warrior Kid by Jocko Willink
· Wild at Heart Events Near You
· BraveCo Fathers Edition Testimony Book
· Send a Voice Message to DadAwesome
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Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:39] Welcome back to DadAwesome. Guys, my name is Jeff Zaugg and today episode 361 is the episode dropping right before Christmas. And as I have been reflecting and just even praying into what's the right way to end this calendar year, year 2024, I wanted to take a moment and share my top ten discoveries. The top ten DadAwesome discoveries, experiences, books, resources, new findings that have been helpful for me as a dad this year. Now some of you are listening. That's totally fine. You can listen and in the shownotes will be all ten of these resources. The list started, I had 24 and, you know, 24 DadAwesome discoveries in the year 2024, it had a ring to it. I realized it's too much. So, I, I whittle it down to my top ten. And of course, some of you are my friends, mentors who have incredible fatherhood ministry resources. And I just simply prayed into, this year, what are my top ten? What are my top ten that just bubbled up to the top that would be helpful? I find myself sharing these with other dads. So I wanted to share them with you. Just last week I took about 20, maybe 30 minutes, and flipped through the photos in my phone and just went through, prayerfully saying, God, would You remind me of things that I'm grateful for from this last year? Well, I have a Google doc over a hundred specific things that I wrote down that I'm thankful from this past year. If your time horizon is longer. If you, if you brought in the time horizon of any circumstance, gratitude will bubble up. I'm positive that if we as dads look back at the whole year and say, where did God show up? Where was there breakthrough? Where were there learnings? Where were there moments of saying, oh my goodness, I'm thankful that I get to be a dad. Broaden the time horizon and you will stir up gratitude and then you can bring that gratitude to your kids. I want to encourage you guys, this is all bonus before we jump into the top ten. Let's stir up gratitude as we end the year 2024. So here we go. The first discovery is breath prayers. Okay, now these have been around since like the Desert Fathers, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, early church fathers were doing breath prayers. Psalm 23, Chapter 23 is a series of breath prayers. But at our kitchen table, we, we've, we're doing this Advent series by Justin Whitmel Earley, he wrote the book Habits the Household. He released a free Advent series. And at the end of each day there's breath prayer. So I'm going to lead you guys through this as we head into these top ten. So, as I raise my hands, as I raise my hands, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see me. If not, that's okay. So we're going to breathe in praying spirits of God, Breathe in spirit of God. And we're going to exhale, praying, I need You more than air. Here we go. Spirit of God on the inhale. Exhale, I need You more than air. One more time. Spirit of God. I need You more than air. So I can't quite recall how to pronounce it. Ruak. Ruak is the breath of God and God breathes into Adam when He brought life and Adam was given the breath of God. And then Adam was tasked with naming the animals, using his breath to powerfully bring identity and naming Spirit of God, I need You more than air. There's more power there than we realize. Here's the next one, encourage me is what you're going to pray on the inhale. Encourage me to encourage others on the exhale. One more time, encourage me to encourage others on the exhale a third time encouraged me, to encourage others. My heart shifts when I do these breath prayers and I'll do a last one. This one we're going to pray, Lord Jesus on the inhale. Renew my mind on the exhale. So here we go. Lord Jesus, renew my mind on the exhale. Lord Jesus, renew my mind on the exhale. Okay. Can you imagine doing these breath prayers with your kids. Now, our our girls are all squirrely. They're not paying attention. They're hardly dialed in at all in these moments, at the end of dinner when I'm doing this Advent series, these breath prayers. But guys, we can use these for ourselves and we can train our kids with just practice moments of praying breath prayers. So I'll include the link to the whole Advent series. And you can, you can research and pull out more breath prayers, these short nugget sized breath prayers. The next DadAwesome discovery, number two is this book right here. Now, this is by far the tiniest little fatherhood book you've ever seen. I have interviewed Jon Eldredge. I've interviewed him twice on the podcast, and we've never talked about this book. John Eldredge wrote the book, You Have What It Takes: What Every Father Needs to Know. Now, it says right in the bookm, it's a booklet, not a book. And it's taken from his book, Wild at Heart: Drawing Out the Fatherhood Principles. This took me about 40 minutes to read. And if you have not read this book yet, guys, it's also a way for a non reader. If you're like, I'm not a reader, you can read this 40 minutes, max. You can read through this whole thing and it is gold. So I want to recommend, highly recommend. It's taken me seven years of DadAwesome to discover, You Have What It Takes: Every Father, What Every Father Needs to Know. It's it's phenomenal. So, that's resource number two. The third discovery is First Bloom. Okay, my mentor, Jay Heck, has been for a dozen years leading a First Bloom events. His ministry is called Being Sons. Jay has been on the podcast, a couple of years ago. I got to travel, fly to San Antonio, Texas with my oldest daughter, my 11 year old, and we spent the weekend with Jay and 16 other dads who all brought a daughter with. The daughters were all age 8 to 13. I'd say most of the daughters were like 10, 11, 12. And there were some on the fringe ages. I've been told that the next First Bloom event is already sold out or very close to it. So when I link this out in the show notes, you're going to be looking at fall 2025 or spring 2026. And I want to send as many dads and daughters to fly to San Antonio and drive an hour north and experience First Bloom. Three days, two nights, the most powerful weekend you'll spend with your daughter. And it's like the best use of time, money, energy. Get there with your daughter and spend time with Jay Heck. You're going to thank me for it. Okay, so that's the, that's the third one. The fourth one is Jon Tyson. We've had him out here many times. Jon Tyson released the father daughter curriculum Raising Resilient Daughters. I've got a group of ten dads going through this process. There's 21 videos. It's watch on demand. But I recommend, don't just take in the videos yourself, recruit nine other dads to join you and you can do Raising Resilient Daughters, then it's only 100 bucks a guy. So, if you get a group of ten it's only, it's a thousand bucks. Otherwise it's like 250 bucks a guy, if it's an online course. So get nine other dads to join you and do it as a group where you watch a video a week or a video a month or whatever and work your way through this content. Phenomenal, Phenomenal. Bonus resources from Jon Tyson, his Awaken Network Prayer podcast, short 20 minute episodes, all on a prayer. We want to be dads, being DadAwesome, you're a dad who gets on your knees and prays for your kids and prays for your neighborhood, prays for your wife, prays for... You guys, we want to be praying dads. And then the other bonus resource from Jon Tyson is his Fighting Shadows book. I took a group of guys through this study this year. Amazing. So you'll hear a lot of me recommending Jon Tyson. The fifth, the fifth resource that I want to recommend is the DadAwesome Accelerator. Now, how is this a DadAwesome discovery because we created it, right? You guys are like, hold on a second. Yes, the DadAwesome accelerator is a discovery because it was invented this year. Only 20 dads have been through this. And you've heard me talking about this everything in nearly seven years of DadAwesome, condensed down to a six week sprint. The DadAwesome accelerator, we only have room for ten dads. And you're going to join me on Zoom for one hour a week and they're going to get about three hours of homework each week. And this is a high commitment invitation. We want you to be on all the calls. We want you to be all in. We want you to do the homework. You're going to get prayed for. There's going to be, there's going to be matching up with a battle brother. Guys, the accelerator, I want to invite you guys, don't just sit back and say it's for somebody else. This is for you and I want you to prayerfully apply. So email awesome@dadawesome.org to learn more about the DadAwesome Accelerator. Likely launching in mid to late January, the next cohort of the accelerator. Discovery number six is Pursuit. You may have seen on the DadAwesome Instagram, we've been sharing in Northeast Florida, where I live, we have launched a chapter of Pursuit. Pursuit is founded by Zac Ernst. He's been on DadAwesome before. But the reason it's a discovery this year is because I launched the first chapter. I've been in contact a little bit with Zac in the ministry out in Seal Beach, California, and with the Jesus Culture guys in Southern California. But we launched our own chapter. I am such a fan of this ministry. Guys, we need to be strong. We need to be strong. Being DadAwesome requires physical strength. Greg McEwan says protect the assets, your body, your physical strength, your mental strength by being strong. Get up before the sun rise, early, we get up really early and we workout as a team and we use sandbags. You can guess, Pursuit, can inspire other expressions of this. But I want you to check out the website and consider launching a Pursuit chapter because you're going to get brotherhood. The seven F's we worked our way through like this is core. It matches DadAwesome in our hearts all the themes they unpack. And it's we did it twice a week. You can do it 2 or 3 times a week. Pursuit will bring massive transformation. So if you're at all like, I need to get in better shape, I want to grow in strength, do a Pursuit chapter and get other guys to join you. So highly recommended. The seventh, the seventh DadAwesome discovery in 2024 is the book Way of the Warrior Kid. Now, it's like a five book series by Jocko, Jocko Willink. Now, this is not a Christian resource, but it's a, it's a resource to invite resilience and perseverance and strength. And it's a chapter book that I read with my girls and they loved it. And we had so many great conversations about, about being courageous, about working hard, about starting a business, about there's so many themes compassion and empathy about awareness and how to keep our head on swivel and think about what other people are experiencing. There are so many subthemes of these books and they prepped us for doing, we did a Spartan race as a family this year, and the book fed in perfectly to training to be Spartan girls. And we created, I'm a winner, not a whiner. I'm thankful. I'm grateful. I don't grumble. I am confident. I don't complain. These mantras and like cheers and slogans as a family. So I highly recommend Way of the Warrior Kid. The eighth discovery is Wild At Heart in the Wild at Heart Boot Camp experience. I went to my first one. I've been recommending Wild at Heart and their weekend, kind of four day, three nights. This immersive experience of all things, kind of from John Eldeidge and the Wild at Heart team. I've been recommending this and promoting it for years. And finally in August of this year, I went at my first boot camp experience with about 25 guys. You can look up on their website at any time to see who in your area is hosting a Wild at Heart Boot camp. I want to recommend this so strongly, and I'll link it in the show notes. But yeah, Wild at Heart boot camp, do it. Number nine, the ninth DadAwesome Discovery is my friend and mentor Jay Vallotton. He's been on the podcast a number of times. So has his dad, Chris Vallotton, but Brave Co. Here's the book Brave Co is, they've released lots of resources and their foundations of masculinity. There's a free E-Course. This is the testimony book and I have been whittling my way through this testimony book. Testimony is so powerful. Hearing what someone has gone through and how God has brought them through and breakthroughs. I just want to recommend checking out Brave Co, learning more about their ministry to men and specifically the testimony book. I think you guys to be so in truth, it's kind of like a coffee table book. Beautiful photography. Highly, highly recommend it. Number ten, we're at the last thing. Number ten, this was written in the 1600s, Pilgrim's Progress. This is actually Little Pilgrim's Progress, the kid's version. It's my second lap through this book with my girls. It's a chapter book. And many of you have read it when you were a kid or haven't read it for a long time. Reading literature that was written hundreds of years ago with our kids. It's so good. My girls, the conversations we've had about salvation, about spiritual warfare, about perseverance, about prayer, about the celestial city heaven, thinking about fractional Paradise and more heaven coming to earth and living with a perspective pointed towards heaven and praying for others and compassion and, and influences that draw us. Pilgrim's Progress, Little Pilgrim's Progress. I'll link it out again in the show notes. Yeah, really, really recommend it. But it's a processing book too, because there's some heavier stuff, heavier themes than life is full of, like we need, as dads, to go there with our kids. So, Pilgrim's Progress is the last one. As a bonus, number 11 resource, there's only ten, only top ten, but as a bonus resource, a discovery if you have not received this. This is the With Wonder end of year DadAwesome, it's a little brochure flier. And if you're on your YouTube, you're seeing me hold it up, that's why I keep pausing. This brochure flier, we've mailed it out to about 500 of you have received this in the mail. And I just want to invite, if you have not received it, we would love to mail you a copy. It's an end of year, look what God has done in the seven years. We turned seven in January. So seven years minus like three weeks of this ministry. It's a, it's the best version of this is what we've had the privilege of being a part of at DadAwesome. And this is where we're going and this is how we're going to step forward into this next chapter. So I'd love to mail it to you. I need your address, though. So you just simply, in the show notes, click the button with, you know, send us the end of your DadAwesome mailer and then quick fill it out and I will mail this to you. I would love to mail to you. Part of the mission of this is to invite our DadAwesome community to give generously, to support, to move our hearts, you know, show me your checkbook and show me your calendar and I'll show you what you really value. Can't recall who quoted that, but we would love to invite our DadAwesome community to be generous and to help support this mission financially, because you're taking time, precious time to listen or watch this this podcast. But if you compare time with treasure, your money, if you give generously and give your time to this mission, it's going to double, triple. I just believe the impact's going to be even deeper for you and it will help us reach more dads. So it's like this triple win. So want to invite you guys dadawesome.org/give if you want to just jump right to making. There's 33 families or businesses that monthly supports our mission and we're hoping to double that number. We'd love for 33 of you guys to say I'm in for monthly support to some level. That would make a huge difference when it comes to forecasting planning growth strategy. So that's the end of my top ten, top ten in the year 2024 for my discoveries. And I'm grateful, grateful for each of you that you listened today. I want to pray for you. Heavenly Father, thank You. Thank You that You are very near to each of us dads and that You care deeply about us walking in freedom, pursuing the hearts of our kids. Learning, growing, stepping into new levels of intentionality, God, you care deeply about this. Fatherhood is at the center of Your identity, the center of Your heart, in the center of Your call on each of our lives. We pray in Jesus name You would equip us with strength, courage, patience, tenderness, love, pursuit of our families. And as we celebrate Christmas, God, I pray this would be a year like none other in the past that we as dads would step in prayerfully and with delight to show our families how much You love them. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
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· 1:52 - "Just last week I took about 30 minutes and flipped through the photos in my phone and just went through, prayerfully saying, God, would You remind me of things that I'm grateful for from this last year? I have a Google doc over a hundred specific things that I wrote down that I'm thankful from this past year. If you brought in the time horizon of any circumstance, gratitude will bubble up. I'm positive that if we as dads look back at the whole year and say, where did God show up? Where was there breakthrough? Where were there learnings? Where were there moments of saying, oh my goodness, I'm thankful that I get to be a dad. Broaden the time horizon and you will stir up gratitude and then you can bring that gratitude to your kids. Let's stir up gratitude as we end the year 2024."
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