Welcome to better today with your host Shawn Maguire and with over 25 years of counseling experience, this is the podcast. It inspires you to create both an amazing family and marriage. This is the podcast that helps you to navigate the challenges of modern life. In this podcast, you will be given the same tools, techniques, and stories that Sean and his team have used to help thousands of people to transform their lives. If you’re ready to make real progress, that will change your marriage, your family, and your life. Then get ready because better today starts now.
Hi, I’m Sean McGuire and this is the New Vision counseling.live podcast, a place where we help you discover what better looks like for you, and then equip you with the tools to create it. Well, today we’re going to be talking about an episode number 43 the four pillars to raising a son who will change the world. Now, in today’s society, sons are often vilified there like these crazy kids. I can’t sit still that can’t. They have all this boundless energies and there’s even youtube videos that are Larry’s talking about the difference of raising and girl where their suite bath time, where there’s calm wake ups to raising a boy or bath time looks like a war zone. There’s soap everywhere on the ceiling, mud everywhere and wake up times or the kid pulled the covers back and shoots his mom with the nerf gun and a lot of that, even though it’s funny, is it’s really true.
There is a drastic difference between boys and girls and so I’m going to help continue the conversation of, we’ll give you the first two pillars of the value of raising boys to become godly men who will change the world. You know, I still see many parents get overwhelmed with frustration. Their kids go to school all day and they’re sitting in these classrooms and the boys are like in these boxes, man. Then when they’re released from school, it’s like this, this explosion of energy comes out. Now there are a lot of kids like me. When I was in school, I wasn’t able to wait until the end of school. I had that explosion intermittently through class because I wasn’t designed to sit down all day without breaks to get up, walk around or or talk and interact with people. So I think part of the understanding is just realizing your son will need different elements and you know, even within your kids, if you have multiple signs, Bill, even uniquely, each needs something different from you as well.
Think about your son or think about our friend that you know that has a son. What do they need? What kind of ways or the acting out? What ways do they need to be called up? Well, the first two that I went over, we’re number one real men. The Way God designed us to delay, if you’ve read the Bible, they reject passivity. I went over, if you haven’t listened to that podcast number 42 it’s really good at going over the Adam and Eve story about how things all went south because Adam was passive. The second thing I went over in the first podcast was the pillar number two is accepting responsibility, accepting responsibility for your life and being accountable to the life that God called you and them to live, and we went over modeling and how that’s powerful. Now, the third one I want to talk about today, this is new material, is leading courageously.
You know where I live and work in Edmund in Oklahoma City. There are so many people that I’ve seen bleed courageously with their sons. You know this guy named Eric Leeds a saying the stone ministry, and he has these camp outs where they go and they night, they’re kids, they have a ceremony and they make swords and they make shields and then make crests to create a family identity that’s bigger than who society tells them to be. That’s bigger than the limits that they maybe have had sit on them by their schools, by their peers, by maybe even if they’re divorced, maybe the other set of parents to really call them back to a biblical journey into manhood and what that looks like. It’s really neat what he does. Saying Stone Ministry. He’s out of Edmond, Oklahoma. Fantastic guy. So how do we lead? Courageously recently I took my son on a, on a on a guy chip.
There’s something I’m going to do with my kids until they age out, as long as they’ll let me, I’m going to take them on a journey every year. And for him it’s becoming progressively the g, the journey from boyhood to young manhood to manhood. And this time we focused on accepting responsibility and starting to lead more courageously. So he wanted to do things and I’m like, buddy, you need to go ask. Well that, can you ask the waiter this? Yeah, I could. It’d be really easy for me. But if you want more bread sticks are a few, want a drink or if you want, whatever the thing was, I don’t remember. I was like, you’re going to need to ask them. So he got up the courage. We talked through the fears of going to talk to somebody. He felt uncomfortable and here’s the, I want to go and talk to that person and lead out.
We also had situations where people were kind to us, so he accidentally bumped into somebody and we talked about, you know, part of leading courageously is saying, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean I didn’t see you there, or, thank you so much for giving me this or for helping me out or telling me directions. Because oftentimes what I’ve observed that without direction children will be passive and they’ll just look down and look away. But when we as parents lead them courageously, then we’ll teach them to honor and value other people and to make eye contact, to shake hands, to be intentional about not just looking at a phone or a device, but but looking at the person when you say thank you or making an intent to make that person feel valued because of the effort they made a blessing your life or maybe they’re having a tough day and you need to go over there and talk to them.
That’s something that you can really show your sons in the way that you lead as a mom or a dad. That will be very effective because here’s, here’s the reality. Our kids will get who we are. You say Sean, what do you mean? Well, I know where we’ve raised our kids and had been in Oklahoma City. Yeah. We lived in different places that they, they’ve received who the person was in Oklahoma City, the Shawn Mcguire, the tandem Maguire who we were. Then we moved to Edmond. Now we have land they have, they’re, they’re getting to experience more consistently a different element in Edmond, Oklahoma because I’m there out with nature, I’m able to chop down trees, were able to build for we able to build forts and do different kinds of activities and so I’m able to lead in and more of that natural outdoorsy way in a way I wasn’t able to before because of the environment has changed.
The same is true of you if you are around people that are toxic. If you’re around an environment that is really negative, even if it’s a high level soccer team or maybe your kids on the Aau traveling basketball team cause they’re are great, but the character of the coaches or the PA or the people they’re playing with is really low. The part of you leading courageously as a parent is saying, you know, my kid and his character and who they’re going to become for life is more important than becoming a great basketball player. And if you say, yeah, but Sean, the coaches are invaluable. Like this is going to be my kids ticket to success in the next level of college or he’s going to play in the NBA. And I would just say for 99% of people, that’s not accurate. Most of us have kids that could be decent at high school, but rarely will they go to college.
Mostly we sacrificed their whole childhood pushing a sport when we could have been investing in a character. Now, for those of you who have the Tim t bows or, uh, a fee, now that that’s kind of a prayerful decision with your counsel around you of what you do. Cause I think there’s, there’s some situations there that you need to step into, but for a lot of us, it’s, it’s deciding on the character of our kid to Trump the athletics or even the academics of our child. Because if it were true that sports was the best platform to become an amazing kid or an amazing adult, that our heroes would legitimately be the people in football and basketball. Those would be the best people that we could find on the planet. But the reality is they’re not. If you see an exceptional person, that’s amazing, like you may not like Steph curry, but he seems like a good dude, or you might not like, you know Tim Tebow, but, but he represented something great.
Peyton manning was classy guy. So think about, they’re the exceptions to the rule. The norm is, is people that are vain, people that mistreat women are and are unkind and selfish, and they live for themselves. That’s not what you’re after. So just leading courageously, I was with my son and we were somewhere and at this restaurant, and these three guys were sitting there and I, because I’m very outgoing and I want my, and I prayed for divine opportunities. I just introduced myself as, hey, you guys go to college around here. And sure they went to oral Roberts, which is where I went to get my two master’s degrees in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and they were talking about how they had just won the battle of the bands and we talked about it and I said, are you guys homeschooled? Because they kind of had that homeschool feeling about, and they said, yeah, we were home school.
One guy was homeschooled in Colorado, the other one was homeschooled and Tulsa, and they had a chance to share their journey of faith a little bit in my son. Got to listen to kids that are older than him that are adults going for it with God going forward and music going for it with their careers and interests in interestingly enough, they either wanted to be a pastor or a counselor and I said, Hey, I have an Oklahoma City Edmond practice right now, but maybe in the near future we’ll open it yet. Tulsa one, and we’ve got to talk about that. And my son was right there seeing you lead courageously and not being afraid of meeting new people and that allowed us to have new opportunities for new friends in relationships. The cool thing about those three guys is they invited us to their church.
This was Friday night and we went and saw them lead praise and worship on Sunday morning, which was another access point of an opportunity for me to lead to legislate and to encourage him and say, buddy, look, these are the areas where we would have missed. If I didn’t say hi to those guys and initiate a conversation, we would have never experienced this really cool church worship service and now we have three new people that may come visit us and be a part of our future life. Think about in your life, where does this hit you were can you lead with your son courageously? What areas can you call him up to start leading courageously in his life? How’s he relating to his friends? Is he the one that follows the group or is he the one that leads the group up or does he lead them down?
How can you minister and move in a way that begins to call him up? One of them is defining words like responsibility, like courageous, like accountable, being accountable to the colon, God placed in your life. Now their specific callings like I’m called to be a pastor. I’m called to be a counselor right now in Oklahoma City and I’m called to be a husband, but as a child, you’re called to be the best version of a student, the best version of a friend, the best version of a brother, and and talk about what that means. That’s leading the courageous life, dealing with your emotions instead of just exploding and hitting somebody and yelling. That’s leading courageously. I could talk about this part all day because it’s so desperately needed for our sons to see us lead them courageously because leadership is caught just as much, if not more than it’s taught.
What’s the fourth one you say? Great question. The fourth pillar is livid trend. Cendant life limit transcendent life. Interestingly enough, remember I told you I prayed before he went to Tulsa? Well, one of the restaurants we went into, we met these clients that I’d previously seen. It was the mom and dad and then their two sons, one of the sons had recently got married. Now when I saw them, they were fighting for their future. The husband didn’t want to be married, the wife did and it was a really tense time in their lives. And the sons are great kids, but they were adults in their early twenties and now they’re 27 28 something like that, maybe even 30 since the time I’ve seen them and help their family and they were incredibly gracious of telling me, thank you so much for what you’ve done for, for us. You know, our marriages together.
And we joked around and had a great time while we were waiting in line and my son got to experience all of this, all of this because they were our bachelor. You know, the people that I see for counseling, they are proud that they see me. They are shy. They are not shameful about needing to get healthy or proud because they, you know, they are the courageous ones willing to fight for their families, fight for their marriages. And I honor and I value them so much during our journey of counseling in Oklahoma City, Edmond, that people come out inspired to live incredible lives. And that’s what these people were doing. And it was so amazing to hear that story of what God’s doing in their lives. Now when they see or hear the journey of this, their son getting married and how that was beautiful.
So we, we enjoy this time with them while waiting in line and there, you know, every time they walked by to go to the bathroom they say something else encouraging my son just soaking it up and then they leave and that and the older son that just got married comes back in and he like, he comes up to me and he grabs my hand and he and I stand up and he leans in, he says, I just want to say thank you because because of what God did through you are family is saved and I’m married and now our our grandparents, my kids will have grandparents that they can visit together. Christmases and, and it was such a powerful moment that my son was able to be exposed to and seeing the value in that usher in an opportunity to talk about buddy. This was living a transcendent life.
This is, this is, you know, the nights that I had to work late, the times that I went away to serve one on a speaking trip for men, the couples we pray for, I said this is the result of the sacrifices that we make. The Times that you’ve missed me getting home early because I’m staying late to help a couple out because I’m doing an intensive in marriage counseling that people really want their lives changed. And guys, I don’t know where you’re at today, but I know that God’s calling you to lead your kids to have and live a transcendent life and that begins with the choices you make in your own life. It doesn’t begin with you saying, when I get perfect, then I’ll pass it on. Because if that were the case, I wouldn’t be telling you any of this because I fail often, but I apologize and ask forgiveness one more time.
Then I fail. So don’t allow anything that you’ve done in the past to limit or paralyze. You have God’s calling of who your star, who is calling you to step into in the present, moving forward into the future because with God, all things are possible. If you believe him and follow that belief, we’re taking actionable steps towards a better future and that looks like raising your son, raising the bar of who he is called to be. Don’t let society determine the outcome of your side. Don’t let whatever TV shows he watches the peers, he’s around at school or in the neighborhood or even your, your family, extended family. God gave you this one shot to love your son amazingly well and I believe that you’ve been equipped to do it, that you will step into this because you’re listening to this because you’re courageous and you want the very best for your family.
Now is the time to start living that out. We talked a lot about the four pillars of becoming a godly marriage, raising your son to be a world changer. The first was reject passivity. The second was accept responsibility. The third was lead courageously and the fourth was livid transcendent life for the greater calling that he has in your life for the greater good. The greater reward in many of you will find this to be helpful to send to your friends family. If you haven’t, please subscribe to our podcast. Also, there are those of you that listen and say, Sean, I just need more help than a podcast or a video and for you go to our website, news and counseling debt live. We have a team of counselors that would love to marry biblical principles with cutting edge counseling techniques to join you in your story today, to equip you to succeed in the journey of raising your son to be a world changer. Don’t wait, do this today. You are so worth it. Your family is still worth the investment of time and effort, so take that next step and something that would really help us is if you would go to Google and review us. It really makes a difference when people share how God’s impacting your life to inspire them that he can impact and wants to change their life as well. So remember, new visions of place where we help you discover what better looks like for you, and then equipped me with the tools to create it.