Third Grade, Forever
On the last day of third grade, my daughter came home heartbroken — and reminded me just how deep a child’s heart can feel. A small story of grief, comfort, and boba tea.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Oh… This Is Why I Started Blogging
A lightbulb moment that hit me today.
We parent the way we wish we were parented.
I’ve always carried this sense that I left home unprepared for the real world. No playbook. No practical wisdom. Just a quiet feeling of, “I guess I’m supposed to figure this out now.”
I don’t necessarily blame my parents. I know now they were doing their best. It was the prevailing parenting style at the time — and I’m sure I wasn’t great at asking for what I needed, either. That was a skill that came later, as I matured.
When I began to live more intentionally in my 40s (Book That Rewired the Way I Live →), I started to realize: I want my kids to have something practical to take with them when they leave the house.
I’ve always coached them, and I see no reason to stop when they leave home — that season is coming fast. I don’t see my role as ending when they become adults. I want to be in this with them for as long as I’m here.
It began as a simple PowerPoint called Dad’s Advice — a living document I plan to send to my kids when they’re ready to leave the house.
The very first slide is titled “If you read only one slide, remember this.” It says:
I LOVE YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING.
YOU ARE KIND, SMART, AND IMPORTANT.
YOU WILL DO GREAT THINGS IN THIS LIFE.
YOU MUST HAVE POWERFUL DREAMS.
This is the Dad voice I want my kids to hear in their heads long after I’m gone.
Then the deck goes on to cover the stuff I wish someone had told me — philosophy, finances, mindset, learning, relationships, productivity, courage, leadership. The practical and the soulful.
I always loved Ethan Hawke’s vibe as a dad in Parenthood — the kind of guy who’d say “Look three cars ahead and two cars behind” when teaching his kid to drive, or who’d make a homemade Black Album of Beatles solo songs for a birthday. That’s the spirit I want in my advice: useful, loving, human.
And today it hit me: that Dad’s Advice deck was really the seed of this blog.
I wanted a place to capture this stuff. A public storage locker for random life lessons, thoughts, recipes, philosophies — things that might outlive me. Things my kids can come back to someday. Things that might help someone else along the way.
“Know what’s enough. Build what matters.”
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