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Morning — it’s Clay.

I’ve been thinking about how much we try to teach our kids… and how little they actually remember. We spend all this time trying to say the right thing, explain the right lesson, deliver the perfect “dad talk.” But in the end, most of what sticks isn’t what we say — it’s what we show.

Let’s go! 🔥

Teaching Values Without Preaching

I’m sure my dad sat me down plenty of times to teach me a lesson. He probably felt good about it afterward—like he’d really gotten through. But here’s the thing: I can’t remember a single one. Not one.

I’m sure he talked about responsibility, integrity, and being trustworthy. But none of those conversations stuck. What did stick were the things he showed me—most of which he probably never realized he was teaching.

I remember how he always helped a neighbor without being asked. How he came home from work tired but still made time to fix something that broke. How he never talked much about faith but quietly lived it.

That’s the thing about fatherhood: your kids are learning even when you’re not teaching. They’re watching when you think they aren’t. They’re taking notes when you think they’re tuned out. The lessons that last aren’t the ones we sit down to deliver—they’re the ones we live out loud.

Most lessons are caught, not taught.

That’s my aim as a father—to make sure I’m living out lessons worth being caught. Because I know from personal experience that they won’t be taught. My kids can barely remember where their shoes are while they’re wearing them, so I have no illusions that they’ll remember some car-ride conversation about how life isn’t fair or how responsibility matters.

But they will remember how I handle frustration when something breaks. They’ll remember whether I keep my word. They’ll remember how I treat their mom. They’ll remember what I do, long after they forget what I say.

That’s the real playbook—not the speeches or the pep talks, but the small, ordinary moments we don’t even realize they’re watching.

And that’s what makes fatherhood both humbling and hopeful. Humbling, because the spotlight is always on—even when we don’t think it is. Hopeful, because we don’t have to be perfect teachers to raise good kids. We just have to be consistent examples.

The truth is, our actions write the lessons our words can’t. How we show up when we’re tired. How we handle setbacks. How we talk about others when they’re not around. That’s the real curriculum.

And those lessons never stop. Just because your kids are grown doesn’t mean they’ve stopped learning from you. They’ll be 50 or 60 or 70 one day and still catching lessons from the way you live your life right now.

I don’t need my kids to quote me someday. I just hope they live out the things I tried to model—kindness, responsibility, gratitude, humility. Because at the end of the day, the greatest lesson a father can teach isn’t something he says at all.

It’s the way he lives.

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Until next time—
keep the fires burning.
– Clay

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