Hey dads, this is a special edition. So I'm interrupting the mini series on raising boys, raising girls and raising kids in a mixed sex house.

because of this special day. Today is July 2nd. And if you've never marked this day on your calendar before, let me invite you into something special. This day, every year I celebrate what I call fulcrum day. It's actually a personal tradition. started way back in 2012.

But before I tell you why, let's take a look at the season we've been in here for a while. Going back to Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, all the way through the 4th of July. I mean, it's a loud, fast and meaningful part of the year, right? Memorial Day, officially or unofficially, kind of kicks off the summer, but it's a sacred pause where we remember those who gave their lives defending our country.

You know, I've always been moved by that. have freedom. I have raised eight kids. I've got seven more to go. I've got freedom to have 15 kids, to raise 15 kids. I've got freedom to build businesses. I've got freedom to make a lot of money. I've got freedom to lose all that money. And I've got freedom to have my faith

however I want it to live out loud, to live quietly. But all of that has come and does come at a cost. And I'm deeply thankful to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and that's Memorial Day. Then in June, we, we, we go to father's day, which is amazing. Hopefully as a smart dad, you know how amazing father's day is. I just celebrated my 30th father's day as a dad.


amazing, unbelievable, just thinking about it. Wow. 15 kids over 30 years, one at a time. Some of those father's days have been great and full of joy. Some have been very heavy and lonely, but they've always been honest. It's not just a day that a hallmark card wants you to celebrate.

It's a day to refocus, send a text to your dad, get a call from your kids, have a meal, do whatever works for you. Celebrate dads. And now we're about to go to the 4th of July burgers and fries and parades. Flags and fireworks are right around the corner. But for me, before the flag waving comes out and the grill gets too hot, there's a quiet little lull that's been on my calendar for a while now. Just that.

pocket of stillness right in the middle of the year. And that's today, July 2nd. I've learned to use it to really refocus, recollaborate, to pause, to adjust. This is just taking a moment of wisdom. So let me tell you about this day that I created that I call fulcrum day. Now you know what a fulcrum is on a seesaw?

right a lever, a crowbar, it's what you use right in the middle of something, right, to balance one force with another force. So how can you use this day right in the middle of your year to balance the first half of the year with the second half of the year to build a better life? For me, this started way back in 2012.

My wife and I were expecting our 10th child. My oldest daughter had one more year of high school before launching off to college. One of my sons was away at a long camp trying to figure his life out and get his feet under him again. I was raising a lot of kids, burning the candle at both ends. I'd been working six or seven days a week the entire month of June for one of my clients, two of my clients combined.


And the rest of the family was getting ready for a beach trip. I mean, we were making money. It was flowing in, but it was going out as fast as I could make it. Birthdays and babies and braces and my back was just in terrible pain. My marriage was strained. Pressure was everywhere. But July 1st, I actually landed in Paris with my first born daughter. I took her to the Eiffel Tower.

Her 17 year old daddy daughter trip anywhere in the world started with her at the end of that day. In fact, it was the next day in Paris, but we were up so late that it was, you know, obviously gone to the next day on the calendar. But I opened my phone up and I noticed something strange. I hadn't noticed before. It showed how many days were left in the year. I thought, wait a minute, 183 days left in the year. That means

Today is 183rd day and there's 182 days we just had and 182 days are left. It just hit me. June is gone. We're in July. July 2nd is the fulcrum of the year. It's perfectly balanced. Like a seesaw having the triangle right in the middle of it. It's, it's, it's the fulcrum. It's the balance.

Now that didn't mean much. It was kind of nerdy, but I was on vacation full-time dad mode having a good time. But that day when I woke up on July 2nd, I said I need to pause take a look at my life. Ask myself a couple of questions like pretty simple questions. Am I becoming the man I said I wanted to be in the 1990s or in the

early 2000s, the first decade of the millennium. If not, if I'm not the man I want to be, what needs to change? And I just looked up and said, starting tomorrow, right, I'm going to refocus. So I thought back 182 days. Wow.


New Year's Eve December 31st 2011. What was it like? Well, I started thinking about I was in Hawaii. I Remember it. It was a trip Life was simple then 2012 chaos storm middle of the year Then where am I gonna be 1231 of 2012 where do I want to be?

In business, you say you only measure what matters. And so that day, that year, I started doing that and I've been doing it every year since then.

At the beginning I just thought and planned, but now I've added a framework, a paradigm, a lens I can see the world through. You may have heard about it before, it's called my eight dimensional living. All of these dimensions start with the letter F, and I've alphabetized them. Eight areas of life that I try to live and lead through. Faith is first, then family, because they both start with F-A.

then finances and fitness, they both start with F-I, then food and freedom, and then fun and future. So faith, family, finances, fitness, food, freedom, fun, and future. You know, it wasn't born out of coaching, business coaching, planning sessions, white-boarding. It actually came from my life. I was living completely out of balance for decades.

I've always been a high energy guy and for 25 years, I think I told you I've worked 80 hours a week over a 25 year period. In fact, I regularly scheduled one all nighter every week on purpose. So I'd start a work day at 7 a.m. and end normally my days at 11 o'clock p.m. But one day, usually on a Tuesday, I would just stay up all night. So essentially I would work 40 hours straight.


uninterrupted 7 a.m. To 11 p.m. 40 hours and You know what I could do it my body my mind was sharp enough and I was okay with that in my 20s in my 30s In fact, I believe you can make a scientific metabolic age-born Argument that men are supposed to be unbalanced in this way in their 20s in their 30s work-life balance Doesn't need to exist

in every day or every year or even every decade because how you work in your 20s and 30s shouldn't be how you're working in your 50s, 60s and 70s. It should be unbalanced across that 50 year span. In those early years, you've got the energy, you've got the margin. I did. I mean, I could go and go and go. Hopefully if you're building something worthwhile,

and you can outwork everyone else, then you can hopefully tip the scales in your favor. Start leveraging stacking wins, stacking talent. And then the key is if you're gonna build that bigger and better life and get that dream you've always wanted, you're gonna be unbalanced to do it. Just do it with your eyes wide open. So this lens is a framework that you can see things through.

So you make sure that what you're building isn't costing you more than it's worth. Guys, I've done that. I've built, I've built, and then I've lost everything and then some. I've built and built again and I've lost everything again. But looking back, it's not that I did it wrong, I just didn't consider every dimension. So that's when I started breaking things down into these eight dimensions. They don't...

fit neatly into boxes. It's not like a category where one stops here and the other starts there. They obviously will overlap. In fact, sometimes they're just fake boxes that I can use to see pieces and then put them back together later. So every year, fulcrum day becomes a tool that I use to analyze each of the eight dimensions. So where are you right now? Maybe one or two dimensions are screaming at you, screaming for your attention.


That's okay. Pay attention to those. Put a little extra TLC into those, but do me a favor. Take a glance at all eight. If you're ignoring your body for finances and future.

It may not be destroying you today, but keep it in mind. Keep a look at fitness. Take a look at food. If your kids are giving you trouble because you're not spending time with them and you don't know them. Okay, maybe it's not a catastrophe yet, but Institute a weekly date for 30 minutes one-on-one. Do something to invest in your kid. You might need some friends to lean into you, help you take a look at your family.

If money is your issue and it's drowning you, give it attention. But make sure you pay attention to everything else as well. So Fulcrum Day is for walking through all eight. So I want to do that kind of quickly, but let's look at faith. Do you know what you believe? I'm studying for my PhD right now in education. I'm taking a class called the history of education and Western civilization. Man, what a study.

I'm finding out what everyone else has believed for the past couple of thousand years and how that's affected us in Western civilization, how it's affected me. You know, I've changed in my faith because how I believe about teaching and about knowledge has affected how I've processed my faith. It's nuanced, but there are some things that I do believe.

that there's a name for now and I go, Oh, I didn't know that had a name. Other things I have believed and I realized, okay, that totally aligns with what I believe or it's adjacent to what I believe. It's, it's not exactly. I have tweaked myself a little bit. So some years like for me, 2012, 2013, your faith can be rocked, loss, betrayal.


health issues, maybe just silence from God. Other years, man, day after day, week after week, month after month, your faith feels stable. It's like you're on the rock. It's like you are the rock. Solid. You're fine and that's great. Most of the time, guys, we probably live somewhere in between.

the rocks that you're about to crash into and the rocks that give you stability. Most of the time, we're bouncing back and forth. So if you can take a realistic assessment of your own faith, do that.

If you can't ask somebody who knows you spiritually, relationally, have him or have her give you some input. You might be surprised. Okay. What about family? Again, 13 years ago, my family was an absolute chaos and that was a season. It was the worst it had ever been in my whole life. This year though, life is steady, healthy, purposeful.

We found rhythms and roles and responsibilities. And even the mundane is shared and somewhat enjoyed. We have really good lanes we're all moving in. We're talking about what matters. Talking about how we feel, kids feel, what we think, what they think, where we're going. And as we're going, we're having conversations. We're listening to music. We're chatting, we're playing car games. At home, we're watching musicals.

or we're listening to the music of musicals or driving around town, but we're getting our stuff done. And that's where we are right now. It's not always been this way. So in your family right now, what's the tension?


Or where is that connection being made? I mean, is there any relationship in your family that you need to lean into today? Write a name or two down and say, you know what? I'm going to focus this week. This month. Over the next six months to listen better. I'm going to focus to to learn a little bit more about him. Go a little bit deeper with his family member. That's what today is about.

How about finances? You know the song money, money, money, money, money. mean, it's got five words. It's over and over again. Why? Because people think about money all the time. It's fuel. It's the energy. It drives everything in our economy and our lives. You can't power your life without money. Where are you right now? Financially? Just ask yourself, where are you really?

Think back to where you were six months ago. Can you compare? Are you better off? Are you worse? Are you the same? Be thinking about that. Ask yourself, where do you want to be in six months? Do you have a plan, a blueprint? If you need to start over, get a fresh start. Dude, Dave Ramsey has a solid plan in his total money makeover. His website, he's got podcasts, baby steps.

Save $1,000 of emergency money, so forth and so on. Work through his baby steps. Most Americans could use Dave Ramsey. Now, if you have complex financial situations and instruments and maneuvers, well, obviously talk to an advisor. Talk to someone who's ahead of you. Talk to someone who can guide you. What about fitness? I was thinking back to 2014. My body was broken. My back was in

terrible shape. remember lying on the ground at the office, literally not being able to work from my feet. I literally had to work from my back.


I signed up to go see a specialist, started stretching 90 minutes a day, three times a week. Did that for 13 weeks, didn't miss a Monday, Wednesday or Friday. Man, it changed everything. I went from the worst back to the best back. 16th, 15th percentile to the 83rd, 84th percentile. My core strength was better, my flexibility was better.

Maybe you're at that point where you're in great shape. Maybe you're where I was 11 years ago and you're in terrible shape. Maybe you need to get up and walk every morning. Maybe you need to drink some water, stretch. I don't know what you need to do, but take care of your fitness. Get some sleep. Sleep is a habit by the way that builds fitness, down your stress hormones, increases your testosterone.

If get seven to nine hours of deep sleep every night, your testosterone will pick up. I don't know what it is guys, but do something to improve your fitness. What about food? Here we are right in the middle of food, fourth of July. I mean, there's food everywhere. You can't eat like this year round, but you're pounding it right now. That's okay. In my house over the past six months, we've begun evaluating everything. Processed food versus whole food.

fresh food versus frozen food. Artificial sweeteners versus real sweeteners. To make America healthy again, like it, love it or hate it, it's been on our minds this past six months. The truth is guys, America eats too much.

We eat too much. We eat too often. Sometimes we just eat because it's time to eat. You might not even be hungry. Maybe you need to go into a season where you're fasting. Maybe it's from food. Maybe it's from beverages. Maybe you just need water for a whole day instead of soft drinks. Maybe you know what? No alcohol for a month. I don't know what you need, but ask yourself what you need to do and write it down.


Just get a small win. Hey, I'm not gonna have caffeine. I'm not gonna do sugar. I'm gonna fast from something or I'm gonna add something to my diet. What I like to do is I like to add three good things if I'm gonna cut one bad thing. So if I'm cutting cake, I'm gonna add fresh berries, some local grown honey and maybe some nuts, because like almonds are sweet to me, so that kind of works as a little treat. The math works.

I can trick myself, ooh, three good things. I only have to give up one bad thing. The body doesn't mind if you lose cake. Replace it with three good things, you'll be glad you did. What about freedom? Dads, our country is 249 years old. We're about to celebrate that. Next year, it's 250 years, a quarter of a millennia. Our Constitution has been active for 236 years. There's no other

nation, nation state on the planet today that has stayed together living under one document so long. have the oldest existing government for 236 years. It's not perfect, but it's powerful and it has sustained us. So freedom. Are you more free today than you were six months ago?

Are you really leveraging this freedom that we have in America? Do you have your own time?

Do have freedom over that? Do you have freedom over your own choices? Do you own your own thoughts? Are you being programmed by somebody else? Remember freedom lived out as wisdom. It's maturity. It's built on delayed gratification. You, pay the price now to get better results later. That's what freedom is. So the question to ask yourself is


What are you willing to sacrifice now to gain more freedom later? That's your six month vision. How about fun? This may be easier for some of you guys. I told you before I wasn't really fun. My dad, he's been fun my whole life. He put fun into his work. He got paid to have fun with his clients in his life. He played golf. He had a blast doing it. We go in the...

Yard he'd be throwing the ball around shooting basketball with us plays with us and the dogs he'd lock us out tell jokes and laugh let us in It was a lot of fun growing up with my dad me I Don't know I schedule fun. I I strategize fun. I Intentionally insert fun into my life. Otherwise, I might forget to have fun That's how I'm wired. I'll just lose it. So

You need to know yourself, right? Fun matters. It connects us. It'll remind your kids that leaders, parents can have joy. Have you seen that drawing of Jesus with his head thrown back just laughing? Again, it's an artist's rendition. We don't know what he looked like, but that's not something we naturally think of Jesus as doing, as laughing.


But man, he had to have laughed. He had a great time. He had fun.

We know we did. Dad, have fun. Water balloons, board games, kicking the balls, shooting hoops.

Dumb dad jokes that might turn into inside jokes. Just find a way to put fun into your life, into your family, and even into your work if you can. And finally, the eighth dimension is future. mean, literally that's what today is all about. Where are you headed? Not 10 years from now, but in six months. On December 31st, 2025, who do you want to be? I want to challenge you. Write down one sentence that says,

I am a man who...

And then start describing yourself in each of these areas. Talk about your faith. I am a man who does what with his faith and then write another sentence right below that. I am a man who talked about family. The next sentence below that I am a man who talked about finances and so on. Go through them one goal at a time, one step at a time, one sentence at a time and focus.


on these dimensions. That's the real challenge, just taking the moment, thinking about where you've been, thinking about where you're going. Take five minutes to spend on each one of those areas. If you have 30 minutes, spend 30 minutes on each one. Sit down, grab a journal, grab a blank sheet of paper, write something down. If you're like me and you want to talk to your phone so your phone can transcribe it, open up your notes and do that.

If you want to shoot yourself an email or a voice memo, do that. Whatever works for you. The idea is pretty simple. Three things.

Clear your head. Just take a deep breath and forget everything else for a bit. Be present. Remove yourself from distractions and remove distractions from yourself. And three, be honest. Sometimes we can't see it. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes that's the hardest part. This is the middle day of the year. It's the exact pivot point where things can turn.

Where we are today, half the years behind you and half the year is still possible. Use this day dads. I'm going to reflect. I'm going to reassess. I'm going to reset.

And then 182 days from now, I'll welcome in a new year. In the meantime, if this episode spoke to you, hey, tell another dad about it. Shoot him a text, send him a message, tell him where you listen to it. It's time to focus dads. Don't drift. Don't just go along. Use today and pivot. You can do it guys.


Let's lead strong and love deep. This is the Smart Dad Podcast. I'm Derek Moore and we can do this together. Now go out and be a smart dad today. You've got this.