The Dad Edge Podcast

Stefanos Sifandos returns to the show six years after his first appearance, and this time the conversation goes straight to the bone. A behavioral scientist and relationship expert who's worked with Olympic gold medalists, world champion fighters, special forces operators, and high-performing couples, Stefanos helps successful people confront the emotional armor and old patterns that achievement can't hide. He's also the author of the new book Tuned In and Turned On.
Larry and Stefanos both grew up with volatile, abusive fathers, and they open up about the exact moments they stood up to the men who terrorized them, the survival patterns that followed them into adulthood, and the slow inner work of forgiveness. If you're a man carrying more than you've ever said out loud, this conversation names it and points to a way through.
 
Timeline Summary
[1:02] – Stefanos returns after six years and revisits growing up in violence
[3:09] – A gambler father, criminal company, and never knowing which version you'd get
[4:39] – How the abuse shifted between two brothers over the years
[6:24] – Leaving the country at 18 and the eldest-child savior role
[7:40] – Larry shares his own story of standing up to his mom's abusive boyfriend
[10:09] – Why a terrifying confrontation can be a painful gift with a long trajectory
[12:40] – Stefanos on the night at the kitchen bench when he told his dad "I'm not small anymore"
[18:46] – Stefanos' full background in behavioral science, performance, and embodiment
[21:24] – The unconscious, fractured initiation from boyhood into manhood
[23:44] – Larry on deliberately taking his sons through rites of passage
[24:26] – Where the relationship with his father stands now, and the memoir project
[27:15] – Forgiveness as an inside job and letting go without relying on the other person
[29:37] – Scarcity, hypervigilance, and why the nervous system prepares for the worst
[36:18] – Why 80% of healing is how others show up and meet you
[38:41] – How children internalize abuse as proof they're unworthy
[41:24] – The book's practices: get a friend, and why men are so isolated
[46:20] – Deliberate solitude in nature and learning to slow down
[48:55] – Seeking physical challenge as the path to real confidence
 
5 Key Takeaways
Standing Up Is an Initiation — For many men, the shift from boyhood to manhood happens through a raw, unchosen confrontation rather than a healthy rite of passage. Naming that moment helps you understand who you became because of it.
Forgiveness Is an Inside Job — Closure doesn't require the other person to change or even participate. Peace comes from your own diligent inner work, not from waiting on an apology.
Your Survival Patterns Made Sense Once — Scarcity thinking and catastrophizing were hypervigilant survival tools in childhood. The work isn't to shame them away, but to notice them and stop feeding the beast.
Healing Is Relational — Around 80% of transformation is being met with compassion and nonjudgment by someone who can relate to you. Insight matters, but connection is what actually changes you.
Get a Friend, Then Get Alone — Men are epidemically lonely, so build real friendships despite the risk. Then balance that with deliberate solitude in nature and physical challenge that builds genuine confidence.
 
Links & Resources
Episode page and all links: https://thedadedge.com/1506
Join the Dad Edge Alliance: https://thedadedge.com/join
Dad Edge Boardroom Goal Setting Intensive: https://thedadedge.com/goals
Tuned In and Turned On by Stefanos Sifandos: published by Hay House, February 2026 (audiobook includes bonus material)
Stefanos Sifandos on Instagram: https://instagram.com/stefanossifandos
Stefanos Sifandos on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@stefanossifandos
Follow Stefanos Sifandos on Facebook and TikTok: search "Stefanos Sifandos"
The Pursuit of Legendary Fatherhood by Larry Hagner: referenced in episode
 
Enjoyed This Episode?
If Stefanos' line about men leaking their pain sideways into aggression and avoidance hit home, don't carry it alone. Send this episode to a man in your life who might be quietly isolated, and think about who your own 3am friend would be. If the show keeps showing up for you, follow, rate, and leave a review so more fathers can find these conversations.

Leslie Tyler is the Director of Parent Education at Pinwheel, where she's also known as the Chief Mom, and the editor of Your Healthy Tech Playbook. She co-hosts the Technically Parenting podcast, collaborates with leading researchers to build practical tools for families, and previously took an edtech company from startup through acquisition by GoGuardian. She's also a mom of two teenagers doing this work in real time.
This conversation gets into what most parents are missing: the body image and hyper-masculinity content quietly targeting boys, why the bully now follows your kid into his bedroom, what AI is actually doing to kids' thinking and relationships, and how to teach self-regulation without setting your kid up to fail. If you've ever thought "he's in his room, what could go wrong," this one's for you.
 
Timeline Summary
[1:02] – Why boys get lost in the conversation about social media risk
[2:20] – Looksmaxxing, jawlines, and the body image content aimed squarely at boys
[3:52] – What the Netflix series Adolescence revealed about hidden bullying
[7:43] – Comparison versus inspiration and why kids can't tell the difference
[9:17] – That photo wasn't their first take, and adults know it but kids don't
[13:25] – How to interrupt the gut reaction when your son sees an idealized image
[14:51] – The cupcake story and giving your kid grace
[19:19] – Why exposing your own vulnerability opens the door to connection
[20:24] – Middle school as the hardest age and where the filter disappears
[22:48] – School used to end at the door, now the bully is in the bedroom
[24:14] – Text monitoring as a window into your kid's friends' real character
[29:22] – The story of a dad who said nothing and changed everything
[31:25] – Leslie on losing her father and what her kids remembered about him
[33:00] – The AI frontier: what's real, what isn't, and why critical thinking matters more
[36:32] – AI is not your friend, it's a sycophant programmed to please
[41:01] – Let kids fail when the stakes are low so they don't fail when they're high
[42:42] – A practical path to self-regulation that starts with the parent
[49:48] – The hallway phone is back, and why kids need a landline again
 
5 Key Takeaways
Boys Are Being Targeted Too — Looksmaxxing and hyper-masculine content hits boys just as hard as thinspo hits girls, but there's no counter-message, so boys internalize it silently.
The Bully Followed Them Home — Kids used to escape their tormentors when the school bell rang. Now the device sits in the bedroom and the bully is in there with them.
Vulnerability Is the Doorway — When your kid feels inadequate, don't lecture. Admit you feel the same thing sometimes. That's the moment connection actually happens.
AI Is Not a Friend — It's programmed to tell kids what they want to hear, and there's no give and take. That one-way sycophancy is the biggest AI risk facing children right now.
Self-Regulation Is Taught, Not Assumed — Start with the parent setting limits and explaining why, then loosen them gradually. Kids will fail, and that failure is the actual lesson.
 
Links & Resources
Episode shownotes: https://thedadedge.com/1505
Join the Dad Edge Alliance: https://thedadedge.com/join
Bark (Dad Edge listener discount, 10% off): https://thedadedge.com/bark
Dad Edge Boardroom Goal Setting Intensive: https://thedadedge.com/goals
Pinwheel: https://pinwheel.com 
 
Enjoyed This Episode?
If the line about the bully sitting in your kid's bedroom stopped you cold, don't let it end there. Send this episode to a parent who's still telling themselves their kid is safe because he's upstairs, and go have one honest conversation with your son this week about what he's actually seeing on that screen. If the show keeps delivering, follow, rate, and leave a review so more parents can find it.

Gary John Bishop is the New York Times bestselling author behind Unfuk Yourself* and Stop Doing That Sht*, with seven books and millions of copies sold, and his new release Now What out this month. In this episode Larry opens the doors to an exclusive Q&A Gary did inside the Dad Edge Business Boardroom Brotherhood, where business owners brought him their real, unfiltered questions.
Three men bring their hardest challenges to the table: grief and a 20-year marriage at a crossroads, the daily collapse between what you plan and what you actually do, and the fear of losing a business that follows you home to your kids. If you're a business owner who says one thing and does another, or who's been quietly sacrificing family for a fear you haven't named, this conversation will hit you where you live.
 
Timeline Summary
[1:02] – Larry introduces this exclusive Boardroom Q&A and why he brings in high level guests monthly
[3:30] – Gary is introduced as the bestselling author of seven books and a friend since 2018
[5:38] – Slade opens with losing his father, rebuilding a career, and a 20-year marriage at a crossroads
[8:20] – Gary challenges the idea that you lose anything when someone dies
[8:57] – Your life as a conversational domain and why your father still exists inside it
[13:12] – The question that changes a marriage: what are the conversations actually about?
[16:02] – Why calling his dad a "degenerate gambler" was costing Slade more than he knew
[18:35] – Alan asks how to stay focused when the day falls apart by 10am
[20:39] – The real issue is integrity: you say and then you don't do
[21:23] – Would you trust a man who never keeps his word? You're doing it to yourself
[24:17] – Gary doubles his revenue target for no reason other than he said he would
[29:26] – You're not detaching from emotion, you're recognizing you're attached to it
[31:14] – Blake on the fear that not answering the phone will cost him his business
[33:26] – Every company is organized around the fears of its founder
[37:39] – "This is not appropriate to this space" and how to shut work off at home
[45:05] – Ciprian asks how to stop building the present on a broken past
[49:01] – Nobody cut you off in traffic: how automatic language creates your world
[53:04] – Husserl's bracketing: set the story aside and be in wonder of what's there
 
5 Key Takeaways
Your Life Is a Conversational Domain — The people you've lost still exist in the conversations you have and the way you speak about them. Locate them somewhere that nurtures you instead of somewhere labeled loss.
Integrity Is Honoring Your Word — Integrity isn't morality, it's treating what you say like it matters. If you routinely say and then don't do, you've trained yourself to be unreliable to yourself.
Your Business Runs On Your Fear — Every company is organized around the fears of its founder. If you're taking calls at the dinner table, look at what you're actually committed to versus what you say you're committed to.
The Language Is Creating the World — Calling something a struggle instead of a challenge, or your father a degenerate instead of a man who gambled, isn't description. It's construction, and you'll live inside whatever you build.
Bracket the Story and Declare Something New — You don't have to fix the past. Set it aside, declare who you are right now, and ask what that person would obviously do next.
 
Links & Resources
Episode shownotes — https://thedadedge.com/1504
Join the Dad Edge Alliance — https://thedadedge.com/join
Dad Edge Boardroom Goal Setting Intensive — https://thedadedge.com/goals
 
Enjoyed This Episode?
If Gary's line about every company being organized around the fears of its founder made you sit up, sit with it a while. Send this to a business owner who's been sacrificing his family for a fear he hasn't named yet, and ask yourself where you say one thing and do another. If the show keeps delivering, follow, rate, and leave a review so more men can find these conversations.

Gary John Bishop is the New York Times bestselling author behind Unfuk Yourself* and Stop Doing That Sht*, whose books have sold over 4.5 million copies and whose audiobooks alone have topped 2 million. Making his sixth appearance on the show, the Scottish philosopher and personal development author joins Larry to break down his newest book, Now What, and challenge the entire premise of self-help.
This conversation gets into why chasing the next fix keeps you stuck, how your old solutions quietly become your current problems, and why self-invention beats self-improvement for good. If you're a dad who's done all the work, read all the books, and still catches himself asking why life feels the same, this one will reframe how you see time, identity, and being present with your kids.
 
Timeline Summary
[1:02] – Gary returns for his sixth appearance and the "Larry and Gary Show" reunion
[3:13] – The line that started it all: solving your life instead of living in it
[5:23] – Why the book slapped Gary around as he wrote it and questioned everything he knew
[6:38] – Realizing most of what we call fulfillment is actually just relief
[8:03] – Now is not a time, now is a place, and now is eternal, but you're not
[11:28] – How Gary scrapped a finished manuscript and rewrote the guts in 30 days
[14:20] – The difference between having knowledge of something and truly knowing it
[22:12] – How old solutions become current problems: work ethic turning into workaholism
[27:03] – Larry on his son's graduation and why he felt joy instead of regret
[29:52] – The meerkat in the cathedral and why context is your one true superpower
[32:16] – Alan Watts on standing in a river with the past and future always here
[36:13] – Self-invention over self-improvement and why the "self" isn't broken
[41:20] – Declaring who you are as accomplished and letting it call you forward
[48:00] – What to do when the people closest to you resist the new version of you
[53:03] – Why we prefer the certainty of misery over the uncertainty of joy
[1:00:26] – The simplest way to teach kids this thinking through better questions
 
5 Key Takeaways
Stop Solving, Start Living — Most people spend their whole lives fixing the problem in front of their face, then wonder why relief never comes. A life you create still has problems, but they're the right ones.
Old Solutions Become New Problems — The job, the relationship, the work ethic you built to fix an old pain often becomes the very thing troubling you now. Recognizing that pattern is how you stop repeating it.
Context Is Your Superpower — You can't always change what's happening, but you can shift the context you hold it in. Mandela sat in the same cell for years and chose to experience it as a life of service.
Self-Invention Beats Self-Improvement — You aren't a broken, fixed thing that needs better habits. Through language you can declare who you are right now and let that identity call new actions out of you.
Teach Kids to Question, Not to Comply — Instead of correcting kids, ask them where they heard that, what they're making it mean, and what else it could mean. "Now what?" asked honestly and repeatedly shifts any story.
 
Links & Resources
Episode page and all links — https://thedadedge.com/1503
Join the Dad Edge Alliance — https://thedadedge.com/join
Dad Edge Boardroom Goal Setting Intensive — https://thedadedge.com/goals
Now What by Gary John Bishop — available wherever books are sold
Gary John Bishop's website — https://garyjohnbishop.com
Follow Gary John Bishop on Instagram — https://instagram.com/garyjohnbishop
Follow Gary John Bishop on TikTok — https://tiktok.com/@garyjohnbishop 
 
Enjoyed This Episode?
If Gary's idea that "now is a place, not a time" cracked something open for you, don't let it stop at a listen. Send this episode to a dad who's done all the work and still feels stuck, and try asking your kids one of Gary's questions this week. If the show keeps delivering for you, follow, rate, and leave a review so more fathers can find these conversations.

Rock Thomas is a serial entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and personal development teacher whose 7.5-minute story about his father has been viewed by over 125 million people and credited with changing thousands of lives. The youngest of seven kids raised on a farm by a cold, duty-bound father, he channeled that pain into decades of overachievement before spending over $2 million on his own healing and building a body of work on breaking generational trauma.
This episode gets into what happens when a boy grows up chasing a father's approval that never comes, and how that wound quietly shapes marriage, friendship, and the way you show up as a dad. If you are a father wrestling with your own childhood, questioning whether you're doing a good job, or trying to break a cycle you inherited, this conversation will hit home.
 
Timeline Summary
[1:02] – Larry shares how a coach showed him Rock's video at the Dad Edge Summit and it moved him to tears
[2:14] – Rock explains how his 7.5-minute story with Goal Cast reached 125 million people and stopped people from taking their lives
[3:00] – The origin of the wound: a young boy craving a distant German father's approval
[4:20] – Broken arm, "suck it up," and the trauma that drove decades of overworking
[5:16] – Why Rock reframes the David Goggins "stay hard" model as pain in disguise
[6:08] – The empty, hollow heart behind the boats, cars, and houses
[7:07] – Rock's mission to be the one who breaks the generational cycle
[7:28] – The football day: waking up excited, and the moment his spirit broke
[9:53] – Larry describes his own absent father and running into him in a coffee shop at 30
[12:06] – Larry's vow to play with his kids 300 days a year after watching Rock's video
[18:22] – How the father wound showed up in Rock's friendships and marriages through self-sabotage
[23:00] – The hockey parking lot: leaving before the other kids to please his father
[24:14] – Why Rock spent over $2 million on therapy, mentors, and personal development
[28:52] – The real win isn't the home run, it's a dad in the stands saying "that's my boy"
[30:25] – Larry shows a video of his 17-year-old son and the dad he's becoming
[33:12] – Rock on the ego, the amygdala, and the voice of doubt keeping men stuck
[35:07] – The "I used to... but now" method for rewiring your identity one small shift at a time
[42:26] – Why big hairy goals backfire and how tiny wins harness dopamine and the RAS
 
5 Key Takeaways
Kids Want Connection, Not Trophies — Overachievement can look like success while masking an empty heart. What children actually crave is to be seen, felt, and heard, not provided for from a distance.
The Wound Shapes Every Relationship — An unhealed father wound quietly leaks into marriage and friendship through self-sabotage and distrust. Naming the pattern is the first step to stopping it.
Break the Cycle On Purpose — You can be the one person in your family line who chooses differently. Doing the work now means your kids inherit the healing instead of the wound.
Change Your Identity One "I Used To" At a Time — When a negative thought surfaces, catch it and say "I used to... but now" followed by a tiny new action. Small wins trigger dopamine and reprogram your subconscious over time.
Small Goals Beat Big Hairy Goals — Massive goals trip your survival brain into fear of failure. Micro-commitments slip past that alarm and let your reticular activating system pull you toward the person you want to be.
 
Links & Resources
Podcast Shownotes — https://thedadedge.com/1502
The Dad Edge Alliance — https://thedadedge.com/join
The Dad Edge Business Boardroom Brotherhood — https://thedadedge.com/goals
 
Enjoyed This Episode?
If Rock's story about that one football morning hit you the way it hit Larry, don't keep it to yourself. Text this episode to a dad who's carrying his own father wound, or to a friend who's chasing approval he'll never get. And if this show keeps showing up for you, follow, rate, and leave a review so more fathers can find it.