Giji Dennard: What Corporate Executives Need To Know About Father-Child Relations [Episode 463]

Fathers affect how their sons and daughters show up at work and also how they relate to their own children. Giji Mischel Dennard, the CEO of Well Fed Resources, articulates a definition of the Father’s role that builds on the strengths and gifts men already use in their corporate jobs. She expands the definition of “Provider” to include more than financial provision.

Giji debuted as a voice in the fatherlessness movement in 2012 after publishing the first edition of “Hungry for Wholeness: A Call to Pursue Healing & Restoration in Your Father-Child Relationship.” She was also the opening keynote speaker for the inaugural Father-Shift Conference. In today’s episode she shares her insights about Father-Child relationships from personal experience, her research, and her consulting work with sons and daughters. She invites fathers to conduct a “Benefit Analysis” and to experience the ROI from stepping up to Biblical Fatherhood. Giji speaks with Dr. Karen about the role of fathers in identity development, unconditional acceptance, achievement, honor, and mentoring their children.

Contact Giji Dennard at Well Fed Resources.

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Listen to the podcast here

Giji Dennard: What Corporate Executives Need To Know About Father-Child Relations [Episode 463]

Many successful male executives have profound stories of challenges in their father-son relationships. It’s as if their great corporate success is a way to prove their value and worthiness to fathers who were distant, unsupportive, and sometimes abusive. In other cases, fathers were physically and emotionally absent. All of these scenarios affect how sons and daughters show up at work. Some of the most tyrannical and difficult bosses have adopted their interaction patterns from their difficult fathers.

Our special guest shares her insights about father-child relationships from personal experience, her research, and her consulting work with sons and daughters. How do fathers impact their children? How do adult children relate to their children, given their father-child experiences of origin? What are the implications for business executives?

Father-Child Relationships & Executive Success

Our topic is How Father-Child Relationships Impact the Success and Failure of Corporate Executives. Giji Mischel Dennard, my special guest, is the CEO of Well Fed Resources. Her areas of personal development expertise include father-child relationships, identity cultivation, effective communication, and kingdom living. She debuted as a voice in the fatherless movement in 2012 after publishing the first edition of Hungry for Wholeness: A Call to Pursue Healing & Restoration in Your Father-Child Relationship. She was also the opening keynote speaker for the inaugural Father Shift conference.

Giji speaks before corporate executives, federal policymakers, college students, church congregations, radio listeners, and nonprofit volunteers. Her compelling desire is to see everyone within her sphere of influence break through impasses to achieve their full potential. Her focus is 360-degree wellness in spirit, soul, body, and business. From state champion orator in high school to director of training at Capital Concierge to workshop leader at the Kickoff Women in Leadership Conference, she has engaged and inspired audiences for almost five decades with her transparency and empathy. Welcome to the show.

I am so delighted to be here. I look forward to this conversation and thank you so much for having me.

You are so welcome, and I’m very delighted to have you here too because your topic is an extremely important topic to my audience, whether they know it or not. We want to unpack that now, and a lot of the work that you are doing right now is rooted in your own experiences with your father. I want to start there and have you tell us maybe the cliff notes version of the highlights of how you grew up without your father and tell us a little bit about how you ultimately met him.

Growing Up Without A Father & Meeting Him For The First Time

I grew up without my father because my mother when she got pregnant, left my dad at six months pregnant, and then she felt it was going to be better for me not to be pulled between parents. She denied him access to me. That’s why I didn’t see him or know him, and then I asked her when I was sixteen if I could invite him to my high school graduation, and that led to my meeting him. I sent an invitation to his father, who sent it to him, and then two months afterward, we had an opportunity to meet finally.

Tell us a little bit about that first meeting that you had with your father. What was it like?

That was it’s hard to even find words to describe it. It was exciting, and overwhelming, all at the same time. I was a little nervous because I wasn’t sure how my mother would treat him, let the dynamic was interesting, but it was also affirming in many ways. I could see myself in him in so many ways. I’m so much like him. It filled a lot of holes for me that had been in my psyche and identity in meeting him.

I love that part where you talk about how meeting him filled some holes that had been there before. Say a little bit more about how your sense of your life and your sense of yourself changed after you met your father.

I knew that I missed him, but I didn’t know what I was missing if that makes sense. In that void, I didn’t know exactly what it would be like, but that sense of acceptance for who I am, exactly as I am, was something that was missing. It created in me a very strong performance-oriented bent in a way that was unhealthy. Experiencing that unconditional acceptance from my father healed a lot of that, and I no longer had a need to find acceptance in my performance.

That’s a great picture of what a father can add to a daughter’s life in this situation. Let’s talk a little bit about your relationship with your mother in this sense. Why was the relationship with your mother, absent your father, not exactly enough in your case? We have lots of people who are in those scenarios where they may be in single-parent homes, being raised by their mothers. They don’t have the benefit of their fathers in the home or even in their lives.

A lot of it is just that parents are designed to be a yin and yang, and when you are missing a piece of that, whatever that parent would have brought into the relationship is not there. In my case, the roles were a little bit different from what’s typical. My father was more of a nurturer. My mother was very authoritarian. There was a gap in terms of emotional support and understanding, and that’s something I didn’t have with that one parent. That was challenging, particularly because I’m a very empathetic, emotionally wired person, and my mother could not relate to that. That created a big gap in our communication and our ability to relate to one another.

Thank you for personalizing it in the sense that this was the narrative for your family. There may be other kinds of gaps that occur with other people as far as the yin and the yang, and what the specific yin and yang might be. We also know that a lot of times, because of how we have been raised ourselves, it impacts how we then parent our children. When you think about your mother, what did you ultimately learn about her father relationship that probably impacted the choices she made and how she showed up with you and with your father?

That’s very much related. My mother also grew up without her biological father. Now, there was a father in the home who was a very solid man. He raised my grandmother’s seven children that were not his. He was about to need sainthood. He was a great father, but not knowing, that separation from her biological father, and not having that relationship I could tell there was something missing. As I got older, I could see something missing even in her relationship with the grandfather that I knew, who had raised her. She never got that hole filled either. I do think that impacted everything in her decision-making and probably, to some degree, even in her choice of a husband.

Why Fathers Are Important To A Child’s Development

Very important concepts. When we think about it, it’s clear that boys and girls need their fathers. From your perspective, why do they need their fathers?

It’s because fathers are designed to help you develop your identity, help you grow into being confident in who you are, know who you are, helping bring out those things about what your dreams are and where your course in life should be going. It’s not that mothers don’t participate in that, but fathers are wired in a different way to bring a voice, a vision, guidance, and a sense of security along that journey. They are the ones who tend to push you out like, “You can do it. You can, you can make it happen. Go ahead, try it.” Mothers tend to be more protective, don’t want you to get hurt, “Don’t do that crazy thing over there.” Dads tend to be more like, “Don’t worry, go do it. I will catch you.”

When fathers aren’t present, it is often the case that both boys and girls grow up either insecure. They tend to be unsure about who they are in the world and how to navigate the world. Boys who don’t see a father treating their mother well don’t know what that looks like and then pass that on in their relationships. A lot of times, depending on the type of father if you had an authoritarian father and that was hurtful when you get into the workplace and you end up working with somebody who’s authoritarian, all of that plays out in our psyche, and it ends up influencing us subconsciously in ways that we are often not aware.

How Father Wounds Show Up In The Workplace For Men And Women

You started talking about something that I want to get into next, which is that man who does have a father wound. How does he show up in the workplace? What are we likely to see?

It depends on the type of father. I will very quickly go through this. I look at five archetypes. You’ve got an absent father, like I had. If a father isn’t there at all, a lot of times, if that man has not had a male influence to show them how to grow up and develop, they can often be lost in relationships. They don’t know how to interact and engage properly because they were never taught.

Let’s say you had an abusive father, though. Then it’s a good possibility that a person will mimic certain patterns of behavior. They may be very harsh in their communications with their colleagues and employees and stuff like that, and that also might be the case for somebody who has an authoritarian father. You may have had an apathetic father, someone who was at home but not paying attention to you at all, and if you were that child who grew up with an apathetic father, it’s a good possibility that you don’t know how to connect with people. You may be physically present, but you don’t know how to engage and develop relationships. Those are some of the ways that might look in the workplace.

Thank you and we have been talking a lot about males in the workplace. That’s a lot of the audience that I have who are reading now. I have a passion for father-daughter relationships. I was very close to my father. He certainly was a very affirming influence in my life, even in terms of me taking risks, going out to do things that my mother certainly didn’t want me to do, like you said but my father said, “She can do that. She can.” He felt like I could do anything.

Me going into the military was certainly out of pattern for our family, and yet he supported that and everything else that I have done in the business sense, in the corporate world, and in entrepreneurism everything that I have he’s always been a strong supporter right there by my side to say, “I know you can do it. Go out there and take the hill.” That would be my father’s approach.

When I was studying clinical psychology, my doctoral dissertation was about father-daughter relationships and how important those are and their impact. Let’s talk about females in the workplace. Let’s talk about women and if there’s a father wound for women, how does that show up for them when they are now in their corporate executive roles? What do you often see?

What I see often is that they are still looking for that affirmation. It transfers that affirmation that you can do it, that cheering you on, that confidence in you and your abilities. It’s very important for them to get that from their boss. If they end up with a boss who doesn’t provide that, it tends to be very unsatisfying for them. Unfortunately, sometimes, depending on how they have also developed in romantic relationships, there can be a misplaced affection tendency toward male bosses because they are still looking for that affection from a father figure. It can be very subtle and often not intentional, but it goes back to missing something and trying to get it filled another way.

Sometimes it doesn’t come from a wife-husband relationship because you are looking for a leader and somebody more of a mentor, but you are still looking for affection. This can create awkwardness and inappropriateness in relationships, and women may not even understand that’s what’s going on. They may find that their bosses want to create more distance, which may hurt because they are trying to get closer to fulfill an unmet need from their father. They don’t understand that either. They think, “Something about this doesn’t feel right,” and so they create boundaries. That’s the danger of people not being aware.

They would probably misinterpret those boundaries. Maybe take it personally and not understand that this might be an appropriate boundary in the workplace when it could feel like rejection to the woman who’s seeking that father figure and doesn’t know that she’s seeking the father. I also think that some women may be very vulnerable because, as they are seeking the father, there may be some I’ll say less wholesome kinds of men in the workplace who could take advantage of them. Talk a little bit about that and the other side of the coin and what might happen.

I have probably experienced a bit of that in my journey because, even though I met my father when I was seventeen I was already dating. I ended up in a relationship with someone much older. They did take advantage of that. Everybody ends up looking for something. They had a need I had a need. They had a need to be admired and adored that they weren’t getting at home, and I had a need for this affirming, affectionate, caretaker-provider-protector person in my life but it was a bad idea, to say the least, and it did not turn out well.

That’s very easy to happen because you don’t always have the wherewithal to read between the lines and see what everyone’s intent is. You can get trapped in something before you realize that you are in something you weren’t looking for. I have seen that happen for sure. I have seen it happen in Corporate America, and I have also seen it happen in university settings in academia with professors and young women.

It’s making me think about the Me Too movement in general and all of these stories that are coming up about men being in positions of power and women. It’s like the old casting couch scenario in Hollywood. “Yes, I want to be a star and get to my next level as an actor or whatever,” and you think that this relationship is maybe going to help you get there when it’s an abusive agreement. The charter between the two people and their boundaries gets crossed in ways that probably should not happen.

That happens much more often than is recorded. That’s the other issue that is a barrier to healing for both men and women. If you find yourself in that situation, it can become very difficult and embarrassing to talk about it. You don’t want to tell somebody, but at the same time, you still may not know how or why you got there. The likelihood that you’ll repeat that is much higher. It’s very important that people understand that there is a relationship between your experience with your father and your other relationships so that you can at least look at it. Take a look, and think about, “I wonder if that might be why I have this relationship with that person or something.” People often exist without exploring how these dynamics might have a wider impact.

That’s a good point. Just because we don’t know something or we are not examining it doesn’t mean that it’s not affecting us. When we do examine it, it gives us an opportunity to see the dynamics in place and make choices about what we want to do going forward into the future. This gives us more agency because we understand and we know that.

It’s very important to understand and be aware of how things are affecting you, why you do what you do, and why you are interested in this thing or that thing. It can stem from so many different realms. A lot of times, we don’t understand the connections, and so we don’t get healed. We don’t become our best selves, which is my real desire. We don’t become our best selves because we are carrying baggage we don’t even know we have.

This brings me to the next thing I’m going to talk about which is why is it, specifically, that men will continue in broken relationships with their children without seeking healing, especially given all the damage we are talking about that can take place. There’s a lot of misconception that’s part of it. A lot of times, men think their children will grow up and they will be okay. They will get over it. Sometimes, it’s a mirror of their own experience, and they may feel like, “It turned out okay, so they will be fine,” not realizing that not only are their kids not necessarily fine, but they are not okay either.

Men, in particular, are much more likely to devalue some of those relational parts of themselves that are important. They might even think, “That part belongs to someone else.” I know a lot of men feel like all that “touchy-feely stuff” is the mom’s role. “You do that.” They pull themselves out of the process of engaging in communication that might bring up questions like, “How can you help me?”

I have seen this repeated. They don’t understand generational wounding either. There are far too many men who were wounded and don’t know it. They were wounded by men who were also wounded and didn’t know it. There are these long strings of wounded men who repeat this pattern because you can’t give what you don’t have. I don’t think that a lot of the time, this is part of the achievement and success men are looking for. They don’t understand how much more fulfilling their lives would be if healing were part of the equation.

I’m seeing situations where women are in relationships with men who show evidence of this father-wasting experience. However, as you are saying, the men don’t see themselves as wounded. They don’t think there’s anything to fix. Very often, they project onto the woman whatever the problem is, thinking she’s the problem, rather than looking in the mirror to see, “What contribution might I be making to the situation?”

They don’t know they are battle-scarred and wounded, and they don’t know there’s anything for them to address. The finger keeps pointing outward to the people they are in relationships with so they never get to see that they need to make some changes. Very often, they go from relationship to relationship, and none of them work because who can live with this wounded warrior who’s not getting help?

They fail to recognize that they are the common denominator.

God’s Intentions For Fatherhood & Lessons From The Bible

You and I both have a Christian perspective on life and on relationships so share with us a little bit about how you see what God intends for men to demonstrate in fatherhood.

This is so important that if men would look to God’s instruction about fathers, to God’s demonstration as a father, that would make such a big difference. I think that men who desire to be good fathers have to look to the creator of fatherhood and what that is supposed to look like. God so clearly demonstrates this throughout the world. When you think about David being a man after God’s own heart, it’s the heart of God as a father that is going to shape men into being great fathers when they have a relationship with God embrace God’s father’s heart, and learn what that looks like. I was reading the prodigal son story. When the son came back, the father didn’t say, “I always knew you were going to mess up and squander the money,” or he then said, “I’ll let you back in if you do this and this,” which are often reactions.

Men who desire to be good fathers have to look to the creator of fatherhood and what that is supposed to look like. Click To Tweet

There’s a condition. There’s that whole notion of embracing the child in all of their mess is not typical. It’s countercultural. If men want to be strong fathers, then they have to understand that it’s going to look different. It’s going to look different than the world does it, but the Bible has a lot of guidance to offer about how to father, what that looks like, and what those responsibilities are.

Somewhere in Western society, we just adopted this whole thing of fathers as providers and then stopped there somewhere, and it was intended to be so much more. They are supposed to be the spiritual guides of the house, and for children, their fathers are the ones who typically will determine their spiritual direction. It’s fascinating to me that a lot of times, and I see this a lot, where a mother will go to church so the kids will go to church to the mother, but what the father doesn’t understand is that his not going to church tells the kids this isn’t important.

Honestly, if they see that thing, they will make a determination, “This must not be that important because he doesn’t go,” and you can take them but it’s like what you are living is contradicting what you are teaching and that modeling of being a spiritual head. If you’ve never seen your father pray if you’ve never seen your father get in the word, if you’ve never had a conversation with your father to talk about integrity and forgiveness and those kinds of principles, or why aren’t we seeing more the fruits of the spirit in your life? If that’s not happening, then that’s a big gap. We are missing a big part of what fathering should look like because, and that’s the stuff that’s going to make a difference down the road. When the kids are 25 and 35 and struggling, those life lessons and the experience of watching a father walk that out are priceless.

What I’m hearing you say so far is that it’s important for the father to meet the child where they are, and they may be in an imperfect place. They might be down in a foreign country, squandering money or whatever, or coming back having lost everything. You meet them where they are. You show unconditional love because your intention as the father is restoration and getting that relationship right.

I also hear you saying that even though a lot of fathers, even in Christian homes, are abdicating the spiritual responsibility, what you are saying is that this is the father’s primary role to be the spiritual leader and what he participates in and what he signs off on is what they are noticing whether this is important or not. Those are very important aspects that we have covered so far. What may be another example or two principles from the Bible that you would say are important for fathers to acknowledge about their role?

In a lot of ways, fathers are depicted in the Bible as teachers. They are often, and it’s so not spiritual things, but other things, teaching about life lessons, teaching about how to make good business decisions, teaching about how to do a business or a trade or whatever. There’s a lot of that example. That’s another place where too many men have abdicated in the home by not teaching their children and seeing themselves as a mentor for their children.

Most kids want their dad to be like the hero in their lives, and that thing. The other part is to show honor. Honor is a part of a culture that also is bereft often, but that’s a big part of what the Bible teaches about fathers teaching their children honor by demonstrating honor the way they honor leaders, the way they honor even when they are leaders themselves, and the way they honor people that are supporting them.

When you think about military leaders in the Bible. Every time the strong leaders led men into battle, they also took care of them. There was an honor and respect for each other as a community that is a big part of what fatherhood should look like and the men’s roles in the home and the community when there’s an honoring of one another. I think about Bathsheba’s husband, when he came home and didn’t want to eat or sleep with his wife because all his fellow men were out in the field, he said, “I’m going to stay outside.” That respect and honor for each other is another part of what that leadership looks like.

Yes, you are talking about Uriah. He was very committed to David and very committed to the nation of Israel at the time, above even his own personal pleasure, enjoyment, or benefits. I’m hearing several things here. You are talking about fathers as teachers and, beyond the spiritual things, teachers in general. I believe it’s in the book of Deuteronomy where God is instructing fathers to teach their children along the way, and in everyday life, use lessons as you are walking along the road, as you are traveling together. He didn’t say that to the mothers. He told fathers to do that. That’s that teacher role that you are referring to.

You are talking about fathers as being like caretakers in a bigger sense of honor in the community, whether it be the military and how they show up there, or at work, or when about the fathers who were respected at the gate. When you think about the Proverbs 31 woman, it says her husband was respected at the gates of the city. There’s a bigger picture or bigger role in that sense.

Yet we know that, as you indicated a lot of fathers out there know that they are to be providers for the family. They understand that role. Some of them get fixated on being the rockstar financial providers and they don’t always stop. Think about, “How am I falling short as a good father if that’s the only thing I focus on is the provider role? Which is important so we don’t want to minimize it. However, if it’s the only provider role, what would you say about that?

I’d say they need to read your show because somewhere we bought this image of that’s what’s supremely important. I think that men who are fathers need to understand that there’s more to it and that there’s a balanced approach. You can’t provide at the sacrifice of the relationship with your children. If all of your life and time is at the office, on the golf course, or traveling to meetings, then something is out of whack, and there’s a heavy price to pay for that down the road. That’s the other thing for all of us, there’s a tendency to not pay attention to things sometimes when the price that we pay is delayed. We don’t see it, we don’t see the consequences right away, and that gives us a false sense of security.

You can't provide at the sacrifice of the relationship with your children. Click To Tweet

Sometimes men even think, “I’m going to do it for now, but after I get to this level, then I will have more time,” and then they get to that level. “After I get to this, then I will have more.” There’s always this pushing out, when I will get to it and all this while, there have been children not being fathered even though they may be provided for well. It’s a conversation that needs to be had much more often, particularly in this space with executive men who may be achieving all kinds of success in the workplace but need to ask themselves, are they rock stars at home? What does that look like?

I hear you extending a broader invitation to a broader definition of provider. There’s financial provision, but there are also providers in all these other ways that we are talking about. Whether it’s leadership, acceptance of the child’s direction in the child’s life, or whatever, if the father’s absent on those pieces of the definition of provision, he’s not being a provider. He’s only providing a narrow sliver or segment of what God intends. Inviting men to think about the broader definition of provider is probably helpful in terms of the conversation that we are having.

I agree, and I also think that it would resonate with them more, and that’s important. It’s being able to speak the language of the hero to connect wherever they are in terms of where they are in their journey, and what this looks like but if they are willing to ask the questions, then they will get there. They will be able to identify gaps and see where “Now that you mention it.” I haven’t been doing that type of thing.

That’s an important point you made about speaking the language of the men. Men understand being providers, and if we can talk about these issues in that language, that’s probably going to have more traction than talking about nurturing, caretaking, or things that are maybe not naturally a part of their lexicon in terms of the role. Yet everything we are talking about is about being a provider, and so that’s a very important point to mention.

We know that the workplace is a strong competitor for relationships on the home front, particularly for men who are in executive leadership. His responsibilities are huge. They are legendary. He’s got a whole company that he might be the president or the CEO of a lot of work, a lot of responsibility. There’s also immediate feedback often in the workplace for success.

Prioritizing The Father Role Despite The Demands Of Executive Life

They can measure their success by financial indicators. They can measure their success by promotions and so many other things. Given that competing interest, if you will, for an executive man, how does an executive man prioritize the father role more than this successful businessman role when the rewards are so high on the successful businessman side? You already said sometimes the downstream implications take a while to be realized on the family side.

Sometimes it’s interesting to me because those same men will be very strategic about how they approach business success. If they use some of those same tools and tendencies being strategic, being intentional I hear that from a lot of male executives, talking about the importance of intentionality. It is very true in business, but it is also true in relationships. I also think that sometimes there’s confusion about time spent. They are worried that, they say, “I don’t have time,” and most of the time, children are not nearly as focused on how much time but on the quality of the time.

If you intentionally decide to once a week have a special breakfast with one child and another day of the week do whatever that child wants to do ice cream after school or whatever. You’d be amazed at how a 30-minute interaction that’s designed around that child’s interests and needs would fill that child in a way that buying them all the gaming equipment in the world will not do. There’s a benefit analysis that needs to be done that if they would approach it like that and look at the ROI on this, it is so much higher than what they understand.

I love what you are saying because you are saying that the same way that they approach their business in a strategic fashion and think about and plan out how they want to show up over a quarter or a year, bringing those same tools to the family how important that is, and understanding that there is an ROI on that investment. That is huge. Thank you for saying it in that way so that fathers can use what they already know how to do in the family situation and start to see some of the results.

In my early childhood, there were a lot of things I could say, but I will say this. Even as I got older and I was in high school, and I’m the oldest of four children, we curated times when I would take the bus, go down to his workplace, and he would take me out to lunch. We continued that all through my college years. Whenever I’d come home, those are things that we did, and those special times are still meaningful to me. We still talk about it, and that was years ago. It’s a long time ago. What you are saying is important. Those deposits, matter. They make a difference.

What you said is interesting because there’s the other side. It’s not what the child gets out of it, it’s what he will get out of it. It wasn’t important for you, it was important for your father too. He recognized that value, and it’s a memory that he likes to resurface because it meant something to him too. Men who would invest that time and create those special situations with each child would find a richness there that they haven’t tasted before and would probably get an appetite for it when they find it.

Men who would invest that time and create those special situations with each child would find a richness there that they haven't tasted before. Click To Tweet

Amen to that because we know God doesn’t work in one direction. He works in both directions at the same time for the mutual benefit of those who are participating in the relationship. Let’s add another piece. Fathers who are in the workplace and who have been wounded themselves when they were younger and growing up. How does this impact the fathering of their children now?

That’s probably what I see the most, and it’s sometimes the hardest to get to because men opening up about their father relationships can be challenging. It’s often not something they are taught to do. It’s often not something that’s considered. They almost associate it with a disability or something, or if it’s serious enough that I have to talk about it with somebody, then that’s a melody. That’s part of the problem getting them to talk about it because if they don’t talk about it, a lot of times, even if they are aware there’s a problem, they are not aware that it’s affecting their relationship with their children.

Many men can talk to me about troubles that they have had in their father relationships with their fathers but don’t see how that’s playing out in their relationships with their children. They don’t see the connection because they are not trying to repeat it. They don’t understand that often they are repeating because that’s simply what they have been around for decades.

That’s what they have seen, that’s what they have known, and don’t understand that it takes work to then get free from that so that you can pass something else on, pass something different on. That’s the hardest part. It’s getting them into the conversation to see that there is a direct correlation. Whether you see the implications right now or not, I promise you that there’s a correlation because we all pour out of what we have poured into us.

We have been reframing things all along, and so let me say this one of the reframes perhaps that we are bringing to this piece of the conversation is rather than thinking about it as disability for the man, think about it as his continuous education in life, the continual learning cycle, and adding to his wisdom and fund of knowledge as he goes along.

You can be great at something, and you can also get better at whatever it is. You don’t even have to be deficient in order to “get better.” Having a lens like that could be helpful rather than saying, “If I’m working on this, it means that I’m in deficit mode,” and that’s not necessarily true. You may be trying to get to the rockstar level in the family like you are in the business world. That’s one way perhaps to think about it.

Hungry For Wholeness: A Book And Workshop For Healing Father Wounds

In our time remaining, I know you have some profound tools. You have your book, which you and your father wrote together, and I want to hear a little bit about that and what that collaboration was like. You also have a virtual course Hungry for Wholeness that will help people to get this continual education and step up to the next level. Tell us about these tools, and how they resource people.

Hungry for Wholeness is a book that I started with the story of me and my dad. We found out, one of the things I discovered when I met him is that we write alike. That was fascinating, and so we thought that we would tell our story of reunion from each other’s perspectives, and that’s at the beginning, that’s all it was going to be but I had a professor who suggested that we get some other people’s stories and make it a book. It took a decade, but eventually, I did that and it was good. I got a chance to tell stories of people who had other kinds of experiences to widen the spectrum. It also points to everybody needing to come to know God as their heavenly Father and embracing that relationship to help bring them wholeness. That’s where Hungry for Wholeness comes from.

I also discovered, as I started doing conferences and sharing with people, that people needed more personal attention around this that a conference presentation wasn’t going to get it, and people wanted more and were asking me for more. I ended up developing a workshop where I walked through some things. There are three steps that I take people through recognizing, repenting, and releasing, and then receiving. I walk them through a journey to jumpstart a healing process for them.

I’m very clear about the fact that it is a process, it’s not an event. It’s not going to happen in two and a half hours, but I can get you started, I can get you going, and I have also created a twelve-week companion diary to help them follow up in that process after they leave. That’s how we have come to that, and those tools can be helpful for they have been helpful for fathers, they have been helpful for adult children, whether male or female.

How would people get a hold of the book and also the invitation to the virtual workshop?

My website is Well Fed Resources. On the healing page, you can do both. You can order the book and sign up for the workshop, but the book and the companion diary are also available on Amazon.

Lots of ways to get in touch and get engaged. You are still speaking on the subject of father-child relationships. If someone has a conference or a corporate event and they want to have you as a keynote speaker, that’s something you also do.

I do that as well, and again, there’s contact on every page of my website, so it’s very easy to reach out to me and I would be happy, and delighted to talk about those opportunities.

Thank you, Giji. Your wealth of information, inspiration, and also healing for people to jumpstart their journey as they go along. As you think back over the people who have benefited from a workshop that you’ve done, what’s a brief example, no names or whatever, of someone who has gotten a transformation or an impact from participating?

One of the interesting things is, sometimes when I go speak, I’m thinking that I’m going to go in one direction, talking about this father-child relationship thing, and then sometimes I get an impression that this audience needs a slight twist. I was speaking to a younger audience, young adults, and thought that I was going to be focusing on their father-child relationship, but there were a number of young men in the room and I had a sense to ask them, “How many are fathers?”

At first, they had not been very open, but when I asked them how many were fathers, most of the room raised their hand. I pivoted and started talking to them as fathers, as opposed to sons, and the engagement increased. Several of them, just opened up things for them that they had never considered about their own fathering experience.

There was this real desire to get it right, and they had no idea that all these things were a part of fathering and hadn’t considered where they might need help or even that this was something that could have a long-term impact. That was exciting to see. It’s the awareness that healing is even needed that brings me great joy, and when I see that when I can get people to see, “This is something I needed to understand to see how to move my way forward,” that’s the heart of what I like to do.

It’s beautiful that you are catching them in the early stage of their fathering experience so that they have an opportunity to impact their children in a different way. That’s divine right there. That’s what I would say. As we are wrapping up, what are your additional and final words of wisdom that you would like to share with my community of corporate executives?

It’s important for them to be open to reframing their home life in the same way, some of the same terms, some of the same metrics that they used to frame being successful in business, and that would go a long way to helping them improve in their fathering journeys and bring great benefit to both themselves and their children.

That’s wonderful and one of the things about that is you are acknowledging the strengths, talents, and gifts that they already are bringing to the table and that they are leveraging heavily in one arena or they wouldn’t be successful executives, and you are saying, “Let’s use that over here too.” That’s a wonderful thing. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for being with me and having this conversation about father-child relationships and their impact on business executives.

Thank you so much. This was delightful. I was glad to have the conversation. It’s much needed in this space, and so thank you to an audience that would read this context.

Amen to that, and so we will close with a final Bible verse, which comes from Ephesians 6:4, which says, “You fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” Fathers, go forward as the warriors that you are. Teach your children, love your children unconditionally, and be the father that God is calling you to be, and we’ll see you next time.

Fathers, go forward as the warriors that you are. Teach your children, love your children unconditionally, and be the father that God is calling you to be Click To Tweet

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I’m here with Terence Chatmon, the president and CEO of the nonprofit organization Victorious Family. They are committed to family, discipleship, and transformation. Thank you for being here. Terrence, tell us about your big goal, and what it is that you are going for at Victorious Family.

By 2030, we see reaching 9.2 million families here in the US.

You are reaching these families because you want to see children grow up and truly continue their faith in Christ. Tell us about one of your resources. Do your children believe the book you’ve written?

Ephesians 6:4 says, “Fathers, don’t exasperate your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” We are being faithful to that calling. In order to do that, we train coaches, and we provide workshops and content to train parents on how to disciple their children.

How can people find out more about the ministry and the other tools and resources you have available, and also how they can donate to support the ministry?

One of those two is Do Your Children Believe?, a book that we have published by Thomas Nelson and you can find that at Victorious Family.

If you want your family to be victorious, go to Victorious Family.