Village Wisdom: Six Dads' Reflections on Lessons Learned

By John Christensen, Trent Carlson, Scott Christensen and 3 more

Six dads with over a century of dad'ing under our belts. Intentionally blank pages between chapters for the reader to fill with their own wisdom before passing them down generationally. This is filled with humor, advice, experience, regret, stories, and ideas for any dad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667894751

Book preview

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Acknowledgements

We’d be remiss not to mention the Village involved with building what is now in your hands. Without the unyielding support of these individuals below, these words would never be before your eyes.

To Bri, Dani, Denise and Whit. Your faith in us dads, in supporting us to carve out the time that otherwise would have been spent with you and the kids, for something we believe in, is cherished and admired. We are grateful for your patience and recognize you’ve each equally sacrificed as much as we have in this collaboration. We are forever appreciative and in your debt.

To Paula, all of the above and then some. Also for assisting in editing this entire thing. Us dads write like toddlers and editing was surely no easy task. You did it with grace and out of the kindness in your heart.

To Jaci. My soulmate. This was no walk in the park. It quickly ballooned into quite a project and in typical John-fashion, I severely underestimated the level of effort required. And in your typical fashion, your encouragement and support pushed us through it. You complete me.

Out of respect for the reader’s time, we won’t list all the kids here (we’ll mention you by name soon enough) but to our children, you are the sole reason this came to fruition. As fathers, we can joyously declare that literally everything we do is for you. We hope you accept this, a greatly summarized culmination of our shared experiences to date, as our gift to you.

I cannot thank Javi, Stephen, Casey and Trent enough. This team not only allowed me to pursue a lifelong goal, and bucket list item of becoming an author; you actively and energetically embraced and enabled it. I don’t believe a higher commendation (short of the Medal of Honor) can accurately equate to my appreciation for you, gentlemen.

The same can be said for my father, you’ll get to know him as Scott in the forthcoming pages. A distinguished author himself, I couldn’t have pursued this personal challenge without him. It is an absolute honor, sir, to co-author my first book, about fatherhood, beside you.

To the trolls on Facebook and Reddit, your toxicity provided the fuel and inspiration to successfully print this. It is appreciated.

Finally, to the reader. You. Hopefully, no one threatened or twisted your arm to pick this up. Simply reading thus far validates our collaborative vision for building this. We mean this more than you know… thank you.

KickStarter

Acknowledgements

Prior to crowdsourcing the printing of this, a mere six dads would have seen it.

Probably their children, maybe a spouse or two and maybe another generation if we were lucky.

Safe to say, this would not be in nearly as many hands as it is now without the KickStarter campaign and all the amazing individuals who were willing to take a leap of faith by backing a seemingly random project for a total stranger.

There’s some real comfort in humanity to be found in that.

Among the many contributing backers, three chose to leave these nuggets of wisdom:

Lisa (felt awkward typing that, can I just say mom?!) said…

So proud to know the Dad contributors. This was a labor of love for generations.

Robert dropped this wisdom…

Humans are shockingly ephemeral beings. Most of our effects disappear even before we do. In defiance of this, children are like waves flowing into the future. Take the time to make sure they will lift the world up, instead of knocking it down.

Casey wrapped up all our thoughts in…

Thank you, dad. I love you.

Holistically, we all owe these individuals for their backing and support of the project. Drinks on us when we meet up next!

Bios

Trent Carlson

Trent is the husband of Paula Beth Carlson, the wife of his youth. He is also father of twelve children, four of which are on the Other Side, and grandfather of fifteen (at time of publishing). He is an electrical engineer and enjoys starting up companies. During his career he has helped with several electric industry startups including an electric generation and transmission cooperative, a consulting firm, two independent system operators and an independent transmission operating company. In the middle of electric industry startups he even helped with a dairy startup. He’s currently working on a startup fertilizer business built on rural economic development in the heartland of America. He loves guns, the outdoors, hunting, working out with F3 Nation guys and, most of all, he loves Jesus Christ the Savior of the world Who made a Way for him to become a child of God. He and his wife of over forty years currently live in Highland Village, Texas.

Javi Contreras

Javi is 36 years young. He’s been married for almost 15 years to his beautiful wife Dani. They have two wonderful children, Cayla (13 in a couple of weeks) and Jordan (11). Cayla is a cheerleader for her middle school and Jordan is an all around athlete with baseball being his primary sport. He has many hobbies such as tennis, golf and poker to name a few. He loves to watch sports. He cheers for the Houston Astros and Dallas Cowboys. In his down time he loses chess matches to Dani, she’s a tough one. He enjoys spending time hanging out with friends and family or traveling if he gets the chance.

John Christensen

John lives in Iola, Texas with his wife Jaclyn, son Camden and daughter Averi. He’s an Army veteran, frequent consumer of Bulleit Rye and plays poker like a donkey. Also enjoys running, strumming a guitar and tinkering with most technologies. He’s a high functioning nerd that finds happyness from farting in congested elevators.

Stephen Marquardt

Stephen grew up in Bryan, Texas and now lives in the Denver, Colorado area. He has two daughters that keep him busy turning one light off at a time. He likes fly fishing and is terrible at golf. His favorite eats are enchiladas and Cosmic Brownies, with a preference for black coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon. He has two cats, Lil’ Kiki Reyes and Behbeh the Cat. His dream car is an El Camino and favorite ice cream is a StarKiss from Dairy Queen (the red, white, and blues ones - not really sure why they make any other kind). In writing this, he has discovered his identity to be closely aligned with food.

Casey R. Weigle

Casey hails from Muncie, Indiana and is a devout Hoosiers fan! Don’t hold that against him, though. He’s a licensed therapist. He’s been married since 2017 and has a stepson, and two beautiful daughters of his own with his wife, Briana. Definitely more gray in the beard since having the girls but fatherhood tends to do that! For all you readers, he hopes you enjoy the ride, not just within this book, but in life as a father (or whoever else is reading). It has been the most rewarding and challenging experience he’s ever been involved in.

Scott Christensen

Scott is a father of two; grandfather of three. Forty-plus year career athletic coach and still competes as an athlete attaining state, sectional, national and world rankings. Recently found his motherland in Austin, Texas where he gets excited about eating a great breakfast at a gas station and going to a convenience store 5x larger than any supermarket he’s ever shopped. His pronouns are Y’all and Tex.

Village Wisdom

Six Dads’ Reflections on Lessons Learned

©2023 John Christensen

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

print ISBN: 978-1-66789-474-4

ebook ISBN: 978-1-66789-475-1

Contents

Acknowledgements

KickStarter Acknowledgements

Bios

Preface

Hopes

Character

Advice

Presence

Health

Special

Goals

Childhood

Surprising

Sacrifice

Habits

Moments

Legacy

Change

Timing

Wishes

Struggle

Success

Gifts

Learning

Troubleshooting

Items

Behaviors

Balance

Style

Decisions

Experience I

Experience II

Activities

Strengths

Enablement

KickStarter Bonus - RapidFire

Preface

Is it weird that this still doesn’t seem real?

I can’t believe I’m typing this, cue the record scratch, let’s rewind a bit…

A few months back, I came to the realization that I wasn’t getting any younger and it was time to create something. I was in the process of transitioning to a new job. In the interview, the typical where do you want to be in five years question came up. I recall walking out of the interview, pulling out of the parking lot and sort of reprocessing what had just transpired. Did I really want to be in a cubicle for five years?

No…

…right?

A dubious wave overtook the cabin of my vehicle.

The seed of imagination was sown.

But, where did I see myself in five years, truthfully? That question lingered. And marinated. I was in the blender; it legitimately weighed on me. In previous interviews, I’d take that question for granted and offer some fluff-filled response that didn’t honestly reflect the way I felt, merely appeased the interviewer in my desire for the position on offer.

Anyone that knows me is well aware that I’m a tech nerd, subtly awkward and an eternal introvert. I thoroughly enjoy being part of a team but equally despise the inefficiencies of working on a miscalibrated one. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate my occupation but I’ve spent years, decades, in developing myself as a leader and my new professional role didn’t really seem to recognize or properly utilize that skill set. All of it just seemed like hearty ingredients for the pursuit of self employment.

Entrepreneurship.

I found myself putting thought into it. Often. I started staying up late, sometimes a few hours from our morning alarm, capturing thoughts. They’d become eventual journal entries for a handful of low-cost, software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings that I felt confident in successfully pursuing and creating. Services that not only interested me but stuff I would actually use. They’d make for fun side quests or hobbies. After a few weeks, I felt like I was repeating myself in some of my nightly notes. I doubled back on prior scribbles which were an absolute mess. Disorganized and nearly impossible to curate in any meaningful way. The app I was using as my makeshift journal looked like my kid’s room; notes strewn everywhere with no rhyme or reason. I needed a new medium to capture this data in a consistent and somewhat sorted manner.

After a little research, I settled on a blog. Seemed the most organic approach to what I was already doing, only cataloged and structured a bit more.

Between work, family, dad life and this prospective blog, I’d fill what little down time I had with a separate excursion down the YouTube rabbit hole of how to build a SaaS. As one would expect, it was fruitless in the sense nobody took my hand and led me to the watering hole. The large majority of content was people pitching their own SaaS or some convoluted means to an end I wasn’t interested in pursuing and my frustration was building with each and every video.

Internally, I vowed to myself, the goal of the blog would be to silently shadow the creation of a SaaS as transparently as possible.

Thought it’d be neat if the service ever came to fruition, to look back on the original posts and kind of follow along the journey of its creation. I started imagining how beneficial it would have been to read something similar that outlined the steps others had previously taken. Surely there are others like me out there somewhere. Little did I know, the others would become dads and not necessarily entrepreneurs.

In parallel, I found myself journaling about life and daily significant events and couldn’t help but think that one day, my kids could read these ideas. This platform could potentially both give them guidance on their own pursuit of happyness, as well as a transpicuous view of what dad was really thinking.

A perspective that they otherwise wouldn’t be privy to.

Stuff that would never come up in daily conversation but thoughts from their father nonetheless. They deserve to know about their father; and more than they’d feel comfortable requesting in any other forum. I put myself in their shoes and imagined what my dad’s journal would look like.

What his dad’s would look like. And how amazing it’d be to read my great grandfather’s journal. Fun thoughts, right?

Furthermore, my kids are young. This has potential to become a lengthy, multiyear piece. But, if this blog is anything like previous ventures, I’d probably do it for a while, become distracted or the excitement would fade; eventually, it’d be deleted and they’d never see it.

After I configured the blog and established the theme, I kind of made a commitment to myself to pursue it for a year. At which point, I’d extract all the entries and turn it into a book for them.

While composing that first blog post, I made it about half way through and hit a brick wall. Hard.

I just had to pause, put the phone down and think through this. Almost like, a gigantic wave of selfishness crashing over me. My brain raced to my Village, friends and family that might have an interest in doing the same damn thing. There was this generational wisdom concept of incorporating blank pages between chapters, that I couldn’t shake. And in that moment, the original self-imposed year milestone seemed needlessly forever away.

It was late that night but I texted the concept to Javi, Casey and Stephen, anyway. To my shock, their responses came in almost immediately.

This thing was on.

The following morning we added dad (Scott) and Trent.

Early on in the month-long journey, I spoke to each of the dad’s at random. One morning while at work, I stepped out for a brief call with one and after we hung up, I couldn’t get any actual work done. It was about 11 a.m. on a Tuesday and I sat in my cubicle, staring at my screens.

I literally couldn’t read anything on them.

My mind just wouldn’t allow it. Every ounce of my attention was on the shaping of this book.

Within a day or so, we established daily writing prompts that would hopefully tease out some interesting experiences or aspects of fatherhood. I sent them out, along with some basic housekeeping instructions and within a day, we had our first responses. This little project was hitting the runway.

After a few days of writing my own responses, I was laying on the couch and kind of decompressing from the day, I had to acknowledge this introspection that was taking place. I started becoming more aware of my own dad-ing ability, and spots where I needed to be better. That night, I started paying more attention to how I parented and the significant impact it had both on the children, and myself.

In discussing this newfound mental exercise with others, it almost seemed part creative writing outlet and partly this odd psychological experiment of sorts. Observing others’ excitement and eagerness for it, the book’s concept seemed to materialize even more rapidly than before.

As anyone that’s ever self-published knows all too well, the process is tedious, and expensive. Although this was a bucket list item, it would be just as expensive and irresponsible to spend a week in the Maldives as it would cost to print this thing. We investigated the potential for preorders and eventually settled on funding the initial printing effort through KickStarter.

That process would warrant its own book and comes with a ton of baggage. There’s a psychological element woven in the organic build of a crowdfunded effort that can expose a Village. I’m not a popular guy by any means (nor desire to be) but I have about 300+ friends on different social media platforms. I thought a safe assumption of at least 10% of that number would want to get involved, right?

Probably more like 20%.

The goal of printing the book was never to generate a profit, simply to make it more accessible to others and hopefully entice other parents to join our Village in creating a tangible record of our ideas, a brain dump of sorts. Creating a lens through which our children could get to know their parents a little more transparently and in that wake, leave breadcrumbs for generations to come to better understand their family tree. That 10% assumption never materialized; instead, it was about 4%. This is getting a little off topic but I acknowledge that to say that this book brought my life together. Between the dads, our story, our Village, those dozen or so friendly backers. This process turned out to be a litmus test for the people I call friends and family. The initial knee jerk reaction was that of disappointment. Saddened by the lack of support, I began to lose a little hope. As I thought about that more deeply though, I became energized by it. I closed my eyes, imagining myself standing at the center of a Village calling out for assistance. And 12 people, through the dark and dense fog, stepped forward. That was incredibly empowering.

So here we are. Book in hand. Mission complete… not yet.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this entire project, for me personally, is the white space.

The void.

The opportunity.

We intentionally left blank pages between each prompt or chapter for you, the reader, to respond to all the same prompts. Or not. You can write whatever you want in these pages but for this to work, you need to write something.

And after you’re done, pass it along.

For a brief moment, take this journey with us.

Imagine grabbing a glass of Bulleit Rye, this very book and sinking into your couch on a cold, rainy, otherwise miserable Friday night. Imagine cracking the book open, reading a few prompts and discovering your father’s handwriting. Above his, in a different color ink, your grandfather’s.

Imagine knowing they made that same voyage you’re making. Now imagine the same scenario, twenty years in the future, only this time your son or daughter is reading this very book.

If you enjoy reading and interacting with this, even half as much as we did creating it, we thank you. And wish you safe and happy travels.

- John

Create your own journey at

village-wisdom.com

Hopes

As a father, what are your greatest hopes

and fears for your children?

Casey

When it comes to fatherhood, one can only imagine the hopes and fears we have for our children. We have visions of how things will be, how things will go, and how we’ll handle situations as we arise as bachelors. However, the intensity of those thoughts and emotions manifest in an instant when your partner shows you that positive pregnancy test! After the excitement subdues, reality sets in.

The fears hit first.

The first fear is that of a healthy baby and healthy delivery for baby and momma when that time comes. My wife and I were two for three on baby making; our first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage early on. This was one of the most difficult situations I had experienced in my life. My first kiddo, the dreams I had of becoming a father, the made up stories of all my kiddo’s successes and achievements in my head, all ripped away.

The pain. The tears. The anger. I felt as if I was defective; that my DNA was not good enough to pass on. Or that it was a sign that I would not be a good father. Having these thoughts and emotions made it difficult to console my wife. I detached because it hurt that bad.

After some time, we both decided it was time to try again. When the test was positive, the fear of reliving another miscarriage never left my mind until I held my firstborn in my arms. It was a girl, and she was healthy. Two years later, we welcomed our second; another healthy girl (after 4 hours in the NICU).

The fears changed from healthy baby/delivery to doing enough and being a good father. That fear remained strong in the back of my mind. Do my kids know how much I love them? Am I being a great father? Am I doing enough to foster a positive relationship so they both can turn to me in the future? Will they come to me in times of need? Will they love me? Those types of thoughts were plentiful. However, those are more internal.

I fear for both my children’s well-being as they grow older. My wife is mixed (half white, half African American), making my kiddos mixed. Will they be treated equally? Will they be given chances, or not, because of this? Will they be discriminated against? Will they be the target of hate? Deep down, at this point, I think this is one of my biggest fears. The world is a crazy place, and not always the nicest. Racial tensions are real. The other fear that parallels this one is outliving either one of my girls!

Though fears are real, and some hold more weight than others, I cannot allow those to hinder my ability to be a father. As a father, I have an obligation (I say obligation because I, along with my wife, made that choice to bring these kiddos into this world) to model for and teach my kiddos, all while loving them unconditionally. Every opportunity, positive or not, is a teaching moment for my children.

I do not attempt to instill my own beliefs (within reason) on my girls; I want them to be able to grow up and make their own decisions. I hope that I guide them in a way where they do not follow the masses; that they follow their own path. I hope they follow whatever dream they have, and achieve it while knowing their mother and I will be in their corner cheering them on and supporting them in whatever way we can.

I hope my children measure their success in terms of happiness, as opposed to money. I hope that by creating their own path and following their own dream, they will not fall victim to measuring success by what society says and forces down our throats daily (looks/appearance, money, material things, etc.).

If marriage is in either one’s future, I hope they find a partner that loves them unconditionally and is loyal to them. No one will love them as much as I do, but I want that effort closely matched. If children are in either one’s future, I hope for healthy babies and healthy delivery.

I hope that when my children grow old, and I am long gone, they will look back at their lives and be PROUD. That they lived life without regret. That they took those chances they were unsure about. That they went against the grain when others did not. That they made the decisions they truly believed in because it was right. That they followed their own path. That they knew daddy was also there for them, regardless.

That they look back and can say without a doubt or hesitation, My daddy loved me.

Stephen

My hope is that my kids lead a felt life, an examined life. Socrates (supposedly) said an unexamined life is not worth living, and I think that is more true now than ever. The introspectiveness that was more present years ago has been replaced by the ideal lifestyle (thanks to Instagram, etc), so young people don’t seem to have the freedom to be realistic with themselves and decide what they truly like, what they want to do, and how they want to do it. I find myself talking with my kids all the time about "being in this moment" and just being present (as corny as that sounds). Taking the time to feel each moment makes you more thankful for all those moments put together, and builds out a life you can be proud of (because you’ve stopped to think/feel along the way). My hope is that my kids have a built in sense of experiencing their lives, one moment at a time, and finding the good, bad, and ugly about themselves - with the intent to use that to push on to a better life.

I also hope that they have a lifelong desire to learn. I think it’s so incredibly important to always be thinking about new things you can learn, and developing excitement about finding out new things. This ties into the felt life, but there’s so much to learn about the world we live in (people, places, things) that the more you can experience, in-person and from written/spoken words, leads to more chances to see your own reflection in the metaphorical mirror. If my kids have that lifelong desire for learning, there isn’t anything they can’t do or figure out - which can open tons of doors in all directions of their life.

My main fear is that my kids can’t find meaning in their lives. That doesn’t mean being rich and famous, but that does mean making meaningful connections with other people and finding ways to appreciate the good and bad about each day. The Greek general & politician Pericles said: what you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. I want that to be true of my kids - that they are able to find meaning in the people and events that unfold around them and step up to take an active role in their lives. What they find meaningful will almost certainly be different than what I think, but I am afraid that they won’t be able to find their passion and drive due to social pressures to work until they die, or fit into certain groups that can take away from who they really want to be and do.

John

I hope my kids are successful. How they determine or qualify that metric, and how they achieve it, is entirely up to them. I just hope I’m around to see it. Their journey in reaching who they become is