I used to own a couple pairs of the Lululemon ABC pant. A staple of a young business professional's closet, they were intensely comfortable, could go through 3-4 wears without catching a stench and a social signal all wrapped into an excellent navy blue pant perfect for the board room, the pew and the 18th green. However they did run with a price tag, as most Lulu items do. One pair came from a gift card, and when I ripped the knee of one pant Lulu sent me another pair. People would ask me, “Oh are those the Lulu pants?” I would quickly respond that they were gifts, discounted or that I had otherwise finagled a deal. Strange.

Why did it matter so much to me that people know I did not pay full price?

The Christian Discount Announcement

If you hang out enough about Christian or Catholic guys, especially dads you surely will hear some version of this. One guy compliments a polo and the answer quickly fires back that his wife got it for him at a thrift store. Someone admires a car a buddy is driving, but before he can finish his sentence the owner makes sure everyone knows it only has 75,000 miles on it and it was incredible used car deal, and of course he paid cash cause car loans are sinful.

Today’s issue of Call Him Abba is brought to you by Cana.

Zola. The Knot. Woke corporations that have quietly abandoned Christ-centered couples, treating your wedding like a transaction instead of a sacrament. No interest in your faith, just your registry.

Cana is different. The world’s leading digital wedding planning platform for Catholics and Christians. Free website, free registry, free RSVP tracking, all of it built to keep Christ at the center of your wedding instead of getting pushed to the side. Thousands of couples are already planning this way. I personally have talked to the founder, James, and this guy is truly an Abba. Driven, faithful, and passionate. Check out Cana here.

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This dynamic has struck me as a strange dichotomy vs the rest of the modern US wider culture. In other circles the exact opposite is true: the amount that one spends on cars, clothes, vacations, restaurants is a virtue signaling to success or social status in itself. However in Christian or Catholic circles, there has been an etiquette where the price of something and specifically how low it was, or whether it was paid for in credit card points or not has to be disclosed so that no one gets the wrong idea.

And I do this as much as anyone- which is why I want to wrap my head around it.

Where the habit comes from

Many of us grew up absorbing a moral understanding to money. That absorption either led you towards a negative or positive vision of money. Somewhere in your formation, at home, youth group, parish, side conversations you might have picked up the idea that having a lot of money probably means that you spend too much at work and not enough with your family. Maybe you cut a somewhere and had your priorities out of whack. My conjecture was that this was never stated explicitly but was certainly in the water explicitly.

Here’s the trouble with these assumptions. It can begin to color things that are genuinely “virtue.” Ambition, hard work, excellence, fortitude and provision are not just virtues but commands of God himself frequently in the scriptures. In Genesis, God places Adam in a Garden of abundance and instructs him to cultivate the goodness present. Through this he invites man into abundance and responsibility simultaneously. When money begins to be treated as suspect, these same virtues given to man by God begin to look like signs of moral compromise for a man who works hard.

What the discount is protecting

When the deal is announced, or the trip to Italy is quickly attached to the fact it was bought with credit card points I realize that I am purely just trying to cut off that same judgement before those around me may have the chance to make it about me. The discount becomes a disclaimer, a defense. But I only needs a defense if I believe that people around me are ready and willing to think the worst of me.

This should bother us, because it creates thoughts that run both ways. If I am so dedicated to protecting myself from the thoughts of others regarding my life, I am likewise certainly also extending that same suspicion to others. The virtue of Charity asks us to always assume right intention in the heart and mind of a brother. This innate suspension of anyone who buys something “new” or “nice” becomes a failure of charity that may have the appearance of virtue.

A point of clarity here.
None of this should affect our understanding of frugality and stewardships. Christians are called to excellent stewardship and a base level frugality that allows for us to use money well. As a humorous ancedote to this point: This past summer, my whole family dressed up like cows to get free Chick Fil A. We drove home in our minivan feeling like we had just beat the system. It was one of the best nights of the year.

However the real question is whether our thriftiness or frugality comes from a joy of good stewardship or from a fear of what other people may think of us.

A better question to ask

My patron and confirmation saint is St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. In the First Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises, he writes that man is created to praise, reverence and serve God, and that all created goods are good in so much that help us reach that end.

Money fits inside this frame.

A $20 bill, a paycheck, a Suburban is good to the extent it helps man praise, reverence and serve God, and harmful to the extent that it pulls him away from it.

This principle applies to every man no matter his income or state in life. Whether in college, raising four kids, retired or somewhere in between. The Church teaches us principles and then trusts the laity to apply those principles to the particulars of their life circumstances. The Church asks not for a show of poverty nor a personal audit of other’s purchases. Christ is clear that his disciples must not serve both God and mammon and that command speaks as much to the sin of greed as it does to my quiet self-righteousness that keeps a personal ledger of who paid full price.

This piece grew out of a conversation I had on the All In Podcast, where we spent an episode on the real money questions Catholic men in their 20s and 30s are working through: how much to save, how to give, how to say no to the golf trip you can’t afford, and why the topic gets so awkward in Christian circles to begin with. If you want the rest of that conversation, including how I ended up filling a Nalgene with gasoline in college, you can listen here:

And if this one hit close to home, forward it to the guy in your group who apologizes every time he buys something nice.

Chasing What Matters,

CHA,

John Michael Lucido

A few years ago, my wife and I got invited to the wedding of a former sorority sister of my wife’s. We were excited to catch up with old friends from college and have a night away from our kids. However, I was most excited to hear from the officiant. I had gotten to know the bride’s father a little bit throughout the years and as a guy in full time ministry myself I had always looked up to him. He had been in full time ministry for years, had fundraised his support for a while and now was a pastor at a large Church that I had a lot of respect for.

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And he was officiating the wedding. The idea of a Father officiating his daughter’s wedding was a dynamic I was fascinated with so I eagerly looked forward to the ceremony. I was not disappointed.

Shortly before the couple traded vows, the father turned to the groom and told him that in a few minutes, his daughter would no longer be his. She'd be the groom's. He said he was happy to give advice anytime they asked, but the groom was in charge now, and when they had kids, those kids would be theirs to raise. "I had my chance," he said, "and now you're going to have yours."

It hit me like a load of bricks. I got choked up. Lump in my throat.

I thought about my own daughter, then just a few years old. Would I be brave enough to say that to her future husband?

“I had my chance, now it’s your turn.”

It was my job to lead to her to heaven, now it’s your responsibility.

This moment and countless others got me thinking about the changing role that parents play in their children’s life, as well as the how the relationship changes from child to parent as they develop. In my experience it seems a topic often not spoken about or lacking significant thought in the area. The thoughts that follow on the topic are a broken attempt to begin scratching at this topic

Today’s issue of Call Him Abba is brought to you by Cana.

Zola. The Knot. Woke corporations that have quietly abandoned Christ-centered couples, treating your wedding like a transaction instead of a sacrament. No interest in your faith, just your registry.

Cana is different. The world’s leading digital wedding planning platform for Catholics and Christians. Free website, free registry, free RSVP tracking, all of it built to keep Christ at the center of your wedding instead of getting pushed to the side. Thousands of couples are already planning this way. I personally have talked to the founder, James, and this guy is truly an Abba. Driven, faithful, and passionate. Check out Cana here.

Honor and obedience are two different things

Most of us grew up hearing the Fourth Commandment, “Honor Your Father and Mother" and self-translated that into “Do whatever my parents tell me to do.”

The difficulty begins when we carry that same definition of the commandment into our twenties and thirties.

I often see this thought process play out into two different extremes.

Either the adult child thinks that they must listen to 100% of their parents thoughts, advice and reflections on their own life, often time in decisions that should be made between the adult child and their spouse.

Or

The adult child breaks away 100% refusing to listen or engage in conversation with their parents on important and necessary life decisions ones that ought to be brought to the parents for advice or discussion.

The Church gives us I believe a more nuanced way to think about it. The Catechism teaches that as long as a child lives at home, he should obey his parents in whatever is for his good or the good of the family. That duty of obedience comes to an end when the child enters into adulthood.

However the duty to respect or honor the parents lasts for the rest of his life.

Honor is the keyword here. Honor at each point of the relationship is mandatory according to God’s law, but the nature of that ‘honor’ changes as the stages of development do.

Obedience is one way honor gets lived out for a season, and as you grow up, honor keeps taking new shapes: gratitude, respect, honesty, staying close, and eventually caring for your parents when they're older and need you.

I find it helpful to delineate certain key moments of “transition” in the life of the child and parent and it plays with this idea of ‘honor.’

When you get your driver's license

At sixteen, honor still looks mostly like obedience, but something critical begins to take place in the relationship. In the current American ecosystem this is the first time the child is obeying without their parents in the passenger seat (both physically + metaphorically)

Parents hand the child the keys both to a vehicle and to the future of their life as a soon to be adult and trust that the child follow their rules about curfew and who rides with the child though they can't see what they are doing.

The child is also now under rules that don't come from the parent at all, like speed limits and the law of the road. Parents are teaching children that obedience has to live inside the soul, and that there's a world of responsibility outside of their home that they have to answer to as well.

When you go to college

College/ or post high school becomes naturally the second biggest shift for the child in this “honoring.” You still owe your parents a kind of obedience, but it starts to get tied up with other things. If they're paying for some or all of school, their help usually comes with expectations, and honoring them means taking those seriously. However the dynamic might reach a place of conflict as well at this point, as one enters those 18-22 years their decisions shift into ones that hold significance on their life. Area of study, relationships, internships, friendships, the way one may spend their summer, these decisions may begin to run up against parents ideas of their child vs the decisions the child wants to make.

A buddy of mine who's about to get married talked about this in a way I loved. He said he's grateful his parents had a vision for his life, because it came from them wanting him to be the best and most capable man he could be, even when it didn't match what he wanted at the time. He didn't want to get jaded about that. Having a vision for your life is one of the ways your parents show that they love you, and remembering that changes how you hear their opinions.

When you get your first job

This is where the relationship really starts to turn. Once you have your own income, you have the freedom to decide where you live, how you spend your money, and whether you rent or buy. Your parents may have helped you through school or they may not have, but either way, you're now carrying the weight of your own decisions.

At this stage, obedience gradually gives way to seeking feedback and advice. You stop asking your dad what to do and start telling him what you're thinking about doing and asking what he'd watch out for. That shift is healthy, and the best parents I know welcome it. Asking for their counsel, really listening to it, and then owning your decision is one of the most honoring things a grown son can do.

When you get married

Marriage is the biggest transition of all. Our Lord says that a man will leave his father and mother and become one with his wife, and in that moment you become your own family. The connection with your parents doesn't break, but it gets redefined, and honoring them now means doing it as the head of a new household.

That same buddy of mine made a point I hadn't thought much about. His parents live in Michigan and he lives in Denver, so when they throw out an idea about the wedding that he and his fiancée have already talked through, it would be easy to get defensive and say it's their thing. But he reminded himself that this transition belongs to the whole family, his parents and siblings included, and that he's also stepping into his fiancée's family. The change he's going through doesn't only involve him.

Jesus went through this

Scripture doesn't tell us much about the thirty years Jesus spent at home with Mary, but at the wedding feast at Cana we see a moment of separation. He tells His mother it isn't yet His time, and you can sense Him beginning to move toward what the Father was calling Him to, while still honoring her completely. The finding of Jesus in the temple carries some of that same tension. If you're wrestling with this in your own family, those two stories are worth sitting with in prayer.

The parents' side is hard too

As a dad, I put myself in that pastor's shoes, and I'll be honest, it's a hard thing to swallow. Say one of my daughters marries someone I don't totally love. I'd have to surrender and remind myself that I raised her to choose for herself, and she chose. They're her decisions now, and I hope to be part of their lives, but it's their family.

Parents are grieving something real in these transitions. They'll probably never again get the version of their son who just hangs out at home on their schedule. That's a beautiful thing and also a loss, and it's okay to name both.

What honor looks like for a grown man

I've watched a lot of guys distance themselves from their parents after one disagreement about a major decision, and it never helps. You can hold your ground and say, "This is my life and I'm going to make this call," while still keeping your parents close.

You can honor your parents fully in the biblical sense, with gratitude, respect, honesty, and closeness, without needing their approval for every decision you make. Becoming a grown man who leads the life God is calling him to is the outcome they were raising you toward all along.

Honoring your parents as an adult means becoming your own man and carrying your respect and gratitude into a new kind of relationship, one that slowly moves from father and son toward man to man and friend to friend. Give your parents grace to adjust to the person you've become, and give yourself grace too, because that new relationship takes time to grow into.

Chasing What Matters,

CHA,

John Michael Lucido

Blazer, slacks, new pair of business professional Air Jordan’s, hair product perfect, preparation for networking dialed, incredible amount of small talk prepared for- I parked my car and walked into the convention center. Nervous.

”Aren’t a little young to be here?”
”You work for a non-profit man, aren’t all these guys better off than you?”
”What do you really have to offer the room?”
”No one will want to network with me.”
”Do I have what it takes?”

5 inch running shorts, shirtless, favorite workout socks on, new pair of running shoes tied, 6 months of training in the bag, energy gel down the hatch - I walked into the convention center with Travis Scott bumping through the speakers. Nervous.

”You are way smaller than all those dudes.”
”Isn’t that the dude who won the Crossfit Games?”
”You should have signed up for the Open Division”
”You should just stop now, so you don’t embarrass yourself”
”Everyone is going to see your time, and think your not fit”
”You sure you trained enough for this?
”Do you have what it takes?”

Today’s issue of Call Him Abba is brought to you by Cana.

Zola. The Knot. Woke corporations that have quietly abandoned Christ-centered couples, treating your wedding like a transaction instead of a sacrament. No interest in your faith, just your registry.

Cana is different. The world’s leading digital wedding planning platform for Catholics and Christians. Free website, free registry, free RSVP tracking, all of it built to keep Christ at the center of your wedding instead of getting pushed to the side. Thousands of couples are already planning this way. I personally have talked to the founder, James, and this guy is truly an Abba. Driven, faithful, and passionate. Check out Cana here.

Two Different Convention Centers. Two different states. Two completely different events.

1 week apart.

Same exact feelings.

The first was SENT Summit in Denver, an annual gathering of 500 Catholic founders, CEOs, and investors. The men on stage were running companies worth anywhere from ten million to over a billion dollars. Patrick Lencioni and Arthur Brooks were giving keynotes. The conversations in the hallway were about fundraising, acquisitions, and exits. I run recruitment for a nonprofit. I had walked into a room built for builders, and I was easily the least accomplished guy in it

The second was HYROX Salt Lake City: eight one-kilometer runs, each followed by a brutal workout station, including sled pushes, sled pulls, burpee broad jumps, and wall balls. I had raced HYROX before, but always in the Open division. This was my first Pro race. Over 2,000 guys raced Open that weekend. Fewer than 300 raced Pro. Everyone was stronger than me, leaner than me, more “jacked” than me. And it showed on the course. I was in the bottom 30% of finishers.

Early in my life, I avoided rooms and situations like this like the plague. I remember vividly in middle school asking specifically to be moved from the A team 7th grade basketball team where I was one of the worst players on the team to the B team where I become the best player.

I remember picking a major in college based on the fact that I would be one of the smarter people in the program vs the major I really wanted where I know I would come in middle of the pack.

I remember picking friend groups based on the fact that I could be the “the guy” in some groups vs just being “one of the guys” in another friend group.

I have spent lots of my life avoiding spaces like the ones I found myself in the last two weeks. I would shrink back, stick to rooms where I was comfortable, where I could find myself in the top 10%.

I know I am not alone in this either. Most men spend their entire lives avoiding board rooms, positions, meetings, fields, and arenas where they might not feel competent. They build careers, friendships, families and routines where they feel in control the whole time. The thought process behind this is one of strength- if I know I can succeed than I never have to face failure. Yet what we realize on the other side is it quickly becomes a ceiling.

When I walked into these convention centers, I was walking into the same rooms I’d spent twenty avoiding.

Yet I learned in being the bottom 10% in a big room, than being the top 10% in a small one.

In the HYROX Pro Race, I came out of the gates hot, pacing with the top guys through the first run and into the first workout station the 1k ski erg. I had planned to take the ski erg a little easy since the two hardest stations for me: Sled push and Sled Pull were coming up next. I took the ski erg easier, hit the run hard and looked up and realized I was right there with the rest of the guys.

Now the Sled Push is 445lbs in the Pro Division. I weigh 155lbs. This thing is nearly 3x my body weight. And did it show. The thing barely moved. I had trained it over and over again in the block leading up, but in the race itself it felt light years heavier. Once I finally finished the purgatory known as sled push, I looked up and thought “where was everyone?”. I was the last guy out of sled push.

Yet as the race continued I began to slowly reel some guys in. Stronger than me, bigger than me but yet I was catching them and passing them. Burpees I passed some guys, same with Farmers Carry, and then on the runs too.

That taught me two things I would have never learned in the Open Division. The sled showed me exactly where my ceiling is, and where I need to lean into next. The runs showed me exactly where my strengths were. When your the best guy in the room, you can’t find either one.

At SENT, the first day felt a lot like the sled push. I made the small talk I’d prepared, but most of the conversations were just get to know you and make connections around shared people or interests. I felt like I did not have aton to add.

Then I sat down with David Murphy. David is a former Navy helicopter pilot who led Notre Dame’s Church Properties Initiative and now helps Catholic dioceses and religious orders turn empty buildings into assets. We talked for nearly three hours. Somewhere in that conversation, he cracked open a problem I’d been stuck on for months with one of the initiatives I oversee in my role.

Months of thinking, solved in one afternoon, by a guy I never would have met in a room where I was comfortable.

That’s the second gift of being the worst in the room. When you’re the smartest guy in the room, the best ideas are the ones you bring. When you’re the least accomplished you get to learn from everybody else’s.

I have four kids, and someday one of them is going to ask to move from the A team to the B team. When that day comes I do not want them to have to read this article to make that decision. I want them to already know the answer because they watched their dad do it. They watched him sign up for the Pro division and finish in the bottom 30%. They watched him walk into rooms full of men who had built more than he had. Our kids learn how to handle being outmatched by watching how we handle it. If we only enter rooms we can win, they’ll learn that their worth depends on winning. If we walk into rooms where we’re the worst, and come home grateful they will learn that they never have to earn a place in my House or the Father’s House.

So go, find that room and become the worst guy.
It’s the only place to grow

Call Him Abba readers- thank you for your patience with a bit of sabbatical from yours truly from the world of Substack.

Took a bit of a “come and see” into the world of Instagram from the spring into this summer. Went super hard (posting 5-6x a week) for about 4-5 months and began to experience a bit of success with it. My niche was sharing about the reality of fatherhood, special needs fatherhood, faith and the challenges of the intersection of those things.

Yet it just never felt right, I seemed to struggle with finding my voice in short form video content. It felt unnatural and manufactured for me specifically, and I felt like there was plenty of other incredible and respectable voices in the same space already doing great work on the platform. I also never have been confused for an ~artsy~ and particularly creative person, and Instagram certainly seems to reward those who can maintain a high level and regular creativity. Needless to say I am out on Instagram, but as white college men say “I’m bullish” still on Substack. So Substack it is- delivering high quality thoughts in mid-quality prose with low quality formatting.

We back baby.

And we are jumping in the deep end on the first day back in the pool with some content that is near and dear to my heart recently- Special Needs children and Artificial Intelligence.

Today’s issue of Call Him Abba is brought to you by Cana.

Zola. The Knot. Woke corporations that have quietly abandoned Christ-centered couples, treating your wedding like a transaction instead of a sacrament. No interest in your faith, just your registry.

Cana is different. The world’s leading digital wedding planning platform for Catholics and Christians. Free website, free registry, free RSVP tracking, all of it built to keep Christ at the center of your wedding instead of getting pushed to the side. Thousands of couples are already planning this way. I personally have talked to the founder, James, and this guy is truly an Abba. Driven, faithful, and passionate. Check out Cana here.

Context and Background

Last week I spent three days at an incredible experience called Sent Summit 2026 by Sent Ventures, a gathering of Catholic investors, founders and leaders trying to build businesses that glorify God instead of grinding people down.

The most sought after session was an afternoon panel on AI and the Church, four AI leaders from HP, Microsoft, the investment world and Magisterium AI (an advisor to Pope Leo XIV himself) talking faith, business and the human person for two hours straight. It just so happened to land the same day as the now infamous tweet from Anthropic’s ex AI lead. The room was primed for it. 500 to 600 of the sharpest founders and executives in the space, and you could have heard a pin drop.

The most intensely shocking line of the presentation was “We are leaving a time of scarcity and entering into a time of abundance. ”

Now before you jump into any moralistic conclusions or jump off the existential cliff into the void of despair, it is important to elongate their meaning. The statement was meant to communicate that in a world of AI, resources will be at abundance. Need to understand 15th century Nomadic tribes? Here is a compilation of all books written on the subject? Want to create a song? Have at least one AI subscription. Want to cook Peruvian food? Here is the recipe, groceries needed, and the food is already delivered at the door, oven is already perfectly pre-set.

In the world of hyper-abundance, extreme comfort becomes the new modus operandi. No need to drive (car is auto -driven.) No need to cook, food delivered via drone, or robot cooks it in kitchen? Clean the toilet? Not necessary- already done. Read a book? Never- rather have my AI powered phone walk me through it in 2-4 minutes.

In a real way- my children could possibly become adults in an age where every possible inconvenience has been removed from their life. No more friction left in their life. Parenting advice from AI, meals made for them, universal income, perfectly cut grass.

The role of the Special Needs child

My wife and I were blessed with our son, Judah when we were 24 years old. As many readers of the newsletter are aware Judah has a diagnosis of trisomy-21, commonly known as Down Syndrome. This ushered us into the lottery of suffering (and joy) called being a special needs parent. And it has been both of those to the fullest extent.

Now before I was a special needs parent, I was a special needs sibling. My younger brother was born with a condition that has prevented him from walking, eating and communicating. So I have been surrounded by children + adults with special needs for entire 30 years of life.

Recently my wife and I have found ourselves walking alongside in friendship with dear friends who also have also won the lottery of suffering (and joy) that special needs parenthood. Three different couples who were dear friends of ours before their children were born- have received devasting news of terminal genetic diagnosis’ for their children in the last 2 years.

And for some reason- these absolutely incredible couples have welcomed my wife and I into their profound journey of suffering. It is a privelege of an unspeakable value to be invited to carry just a small part of someone’s cross with them.

I have frequently asked God why he has put us in this position to walk through our own journey with our son but also be invited into these couples’ lives the way he has.

Finding one answer to this complex question seems far too simplistic for an all-knowing God. But I think I am getting closer.

AI is only for problems that can be solved

Whether or not AI has the power to wipe out humanity by 2030 or not= it will create a time of hyper abundance that the world has never before laid witness to.

But the problem with that?
Abundance only works on problems that can be solved.

AI will be able to write your emails, drive a car, cook your food and answer your college football musings. It will remove friction from the parts of life that were seemly “obstacles” to your living of it.

The hardest part of a child/ adult with special needs though is that you can’t fix them. No matter how hard one may try- you can’t “fix” a genetic condition. And no matter how hard the world wants to convince us: we must be clear that “termination” is not fixing the problem either.

There is no way to optimize a special needs child. You cannot automate their fourth hour of crying in the night, or therapy that seems to show no measurable progress for 18 months straight. There is no shortcut through it, and no app that delivers it straight to your door. The only way through it, is just to sit in it.

This exactly what AI is trying to remove. Waiting. Every promise of a frictionless life is a promise that you will not have to stay uncomfortable for long. But special needs parenting is nothing but staying put. It will be one of the last places left where presence cannot be replaced by product.

A culture built on abundance will always be tempted to solve the unsolvable by erasing it instead, which is exactly why the world calls termination progress and calls raising a child like Judah a burden.

Christians already stand out from the world in their openness to life and seeking to generously raise large families in spite of the increasing economic, cultural and societal obstacles in doing so. But let us continue to foster a culture of life and thriving for those whom the world calls “disabled.”

Chasing What Matters,

CHA,

John Michael Lucido

A couple weeks ago I made a post on Instagram. It was a trend reel that had been gaining traction on Instagram using a popular old Linkin Park song. I decided to make it faith based and use it to show the beautiful reality of re-entering the world after a time of prayer and intimacy with our Lord.

Well the post has gone viral with nearly 100K views so far. While that was quite shocking to me, what was even more shocking was what happened in the comments.

The comments of my post turned into a virtual theological forum, with people arguing theology back and forth particularly over Protestant vs Catholic ideology. I wish I could say these discussions were civil, charitable and filled with good will. Unfortunately though if you read them you will find numerous seemingly young Catholic men making vile and frankly mean comments regarding either people, or people of other faiths.

Now while I am proudly Catholic, speak about the Catholic faith professionally, and raise my kids Catholic, I came to know Christ originally through the witness of zealous evangelicals that loved Jesus and who knew the word of God in a profound way that has left a profound and abiding impact in my life. My wife was Protestant for the 3 out of 4 years of our dating relationship and we have many Jesus loving, virtuous Evangelical friends and family who we respect their faith in Christ powerfully.

It saddened me greatly to see these comments.

Recently I was having a conversation with a buddy about a Netflix documentary he recommended to me. It’s called the Manosphere. It explored how online spaces, particularly those aimed at young men, can radicalize people toward increasingly extreme views through a kind of pipeline effect, where what starts as self-improvement content gradually hardens into tribalism, contempt, and identity-based aggression.

And as I watched it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that what I was seeing in my comments section wasn’t entirely different. Young Catholic men, formed in the faith, wielding theology not as a path to conversion or communion but as a weapon. The doctrine was real. The zeal was real. But the charity was nowhere to be found.

And that troubles me deeply.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have seen the results of this dynamic pop up. As a part of my day job as Sr. Director of Recruitment and Retention for FOCUS, I am privileged to travel frequently across the country, meeting with men in their 20s talking to them about their future and discernment.

As I have spent time with men in this space I am picking up a significant rise in what I am struggling to explain as an anti-establishment, rogue, prideful, hyper intellectual, and calculating approach to the faith. And other people are starting to see this as well. The growth of hate filled rhetoric online from particularly Catholic influencers and personalities continues to grow, as well as their listener base.

Recently, Catholic speaker, author and radio host Katie McGrady was attacked vehemently online by seemingly young Catholic men.

Katie McGrady

The Kindness Hotline

I opened X (formerly known as Twitter) yesterday afternoon to a flurry of activity from the chad-trad-bros who live in the seedy underbelly of the Catholic internet. I won’t describe them much more than that, for the sake of my own salvation…

Read more

8 months ago · 78 likes · 9 comments · Katie Prejean McGrady

This is not an isolated incident. The evidence continues to mount.

One priest writing in The Catholic Thing noted that when young men now approach him about entering the faith, he no longer begins with God’s love or prayer. He begins by discussing their digital habits, warning specifically against what he calls the “3 Ps”: pornography, pious conflicts online, and politics. 1

Catholic thinkers and leaders have begun naming this directly: toxic masculinity is showing up in Catholic online spaces, manifesting in forms ranging from domineering voices who embrace conspiracy theories to laypeople hostile toward women and anyone outside their tribe. And the healthy doctrine on what it actually means to be a man gets obscured by this warped vision.

A peer-reviewed essay drawing on Catholic social ethics argues that social media algorithms function as structures of sin, amplifying hatred and fostering polarization, and that they are particularly potent catalysts for online radicalization. And the most avid users of these: men between the ages of 18-40. 2

And I have to be honest. This hits differently for me than it might for others.

Because here is what I think is actually happening beneath the surface.

Researchers and analysts who study online radicalization note that these spaces appeal to young men precisely because they offer a sense of belonging and help them make sense of their own frustrations. If a young man feels alienated or powerless, these communities can feel genuinely empowering. The faith becomes the vehicle, but the wound driving it is something much older and much more personal.

The healthy doctrine on what it actually means to be a man gets obscured by this warped vision of masculinity and what remains is a young man who has been handed a sword but never taught to love.

The theology is real. The zeal is real. But it has been weaponized by an interior wound that the internet is feeding rather than healing.

I saw a Substack note shared by a friend , a former FOCUS missionary who has a pretty large online following from years podcasting that summed up this problem acutely.

The idea here is powerful and deeply concerning. The real lived experience of many Catholic Christians, and for the sake of this article I will just speak of particularly has left them wanting.

While on the internet in a hyper aggressive, hostile environment other men are coming to “conversions” in a way that is limited to 15 sec reels, clips, threads and short form content.

These young men did not arrive at cruelty on their own. Something formed them this way, or more precisely, something failed to form them.

There is a generation of young Catholic men who found doctrine before they found encounter, who discovered the Catechism before they discovered the Father, and who learned to defend the faith before they ever fell in love with it. And into that gap, the internet rushed in with something that felt like formation but was actually just fuel, fuel for anger, fuel for pride, fuel for a tribal identity built not on who they belong to but on who they are against.

This is the real crisis underneath the crisis, and it is not primarily a social media problem, though social media accelerates it enormously. It is not primarily a masculinity problem, though masculinity is clearly implicated. At its root it is a formation problem, one in which these young men have been handed a sword and told it makes them warriors, while no one took the time to teach them to love first. A sword in the hands of a man who has not learned to love is not a weapon for the Kingdom, it is just a weapon.

What results is a faith that becomes a costume for something that is not faith at all, where certainty masquerades as conviction, contempt masquerades as zeal, and tribalism masquerades as orthodoxy. And the man wearing it often cannot tell the difference, because no one close enough to him has loved him well enough to show him.

I don’t write any of this with contempt for these young men. Honestly, in some ways I understand them. They are coming to faith and masculinity in a time and space that is full of trap doors that look like faith but are actually just disguises for vanity and pride.

The world has not been kind to young men lately, and the Church has not always known what to do with their energy, their hunger, or their anger. So when someone online offers them a tribe, a cause, and a sense of righteous purpose, it is not hard to see why they take it.

But understanding something is not the same as accepting it. And what I am watching happen in and thru these young men is doing real damage, not just to the individuals caught in it, but to the mission of the Church herself. Every vile comment thread, every sneering dismissal of a fellow Christian, every act of theological cruelty performed in public is another door closed to someone who might have otherwise walked toward Christ.

The evangelicals who introduced me to Jesus did not argue me into the Kingdom, they welcomed me into it through friendship, fellowship and the person of Jesus Christ

So the question I keep sitting with is this: what is actually going to change this? Awareness of the problem is not enough. Naming it publicly is not enough. In Part 2, I want to go deeper into what genuine formation of young men actually looks like, what the Church has always known about this that the internet cannot replicate, and what those of us with influence over young men are responsible to do about it.

Chasing What Matters,

CHA,

John Michael Lucido

When I look at photos of my wife and I in college and compare them to where we are now, it feels like I’m looking at two completely different people. Back then everything felt like it was just beginning, while now everything carries a sense of weight and responsibility that I didn’t fully understand at the time.

At 29, as a husband, a father, and someone entrusted with leading others in the workplace, I don’t look back on my twenties with regret or even nostalgia, but with a growing sense of clarity about what actually mattered and how God was at work in ways I could not yet see.

If I could sit down with my 20-year-old self, this is the advice I would give.

1. Get ahead in your marriage, not just your career

Your twenties will naturally push you toward career growth, especially as you step into your first job, take on early leadership opportunities, and begin earning a full-time income. There is a real and healthy desire to prove yourself, to work hard, and to take responsibility seriously, and those things are good when they are rightly ordered.

What I would tell myself now is not to let my career develop at a faster rate than my marriage, because marriage is not just a relationship, it is a vocation and a sacrament that God uses to sanctify you. The first five years of marriage are not meant to be something you simply survive while focusing on everything else; they are meant to be a time where you intentionally build something that can actually reflect Christ’s love.

If you are not married yet- don’t worry this still applies to you. The way you live now is forming the kind of spouse you will become later. The habits you build, the way you pray, the way you date, and the way you practice self-gift and discipline are all preparing you for your future vocation. You do not prepare for marriage once you are in it, you prepare for it in the quiet, hidden choices you make long before.

This means learning how to communicate with humility, asking for forgiveness quickly, and choosing to love sacrificially even in your friendships and dating relationships. It also means inviting God into your life now through daily prayer, frequent reception of the sacraments, and a real commitment to grow in virtue.

If you can get ahead in your marriage during those early years, or prepare well for it before it begins, you will not spend the next decade trying to repair what was neglected, but instead you will be building on a foundation that has already been strengthened by grace.

The way you love now is forming the kind of spouse you will be later.

2. Spend more time in gratitude than in planning

Your twenties are filled with significant “firsts,” and because of that it is easy to fall into a constant rhythm of thinking about what comes next. Whether it is your first apartment, your first home, your first child, or your first real set of responsibilities, there is always another step to prepare for and another milestone to plan toward.

While planning is important and responsible, it can quietly take over to the point where you are no longer attentive to the presence of God in your actual, everyday life. What I would tell myself is to spend more time cultivating gratitude, because gratitude is not just a mindset, it is a posture of the soul that recognizes everything as gift.

Learning to thank God for a small apartment, a tight budget, or the early and often chaotic days of young children changes the way you live those moments, and it anchors you in reality instead of constantly pulling you into the future.

In many ways, gratitude becomes a form of prayer that keeps your heart rooted in God rather than in your own plans. Planning helps you prepare for what is ahead, but gratitude allows you to encounter God in what is already here.

If you miss the present, no amount of planning will make up for it later.

3. Do something memorable, but live with responsibility

One of the great gifts of your twenties is the level of freedom that you have, even if it doesn’t always feel like it at the time. This is a decade where you have the opportunity to take risks, step into new experiences, and create memories that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

What I would tell myself is to use that freedom in a way that actually leads you closer to God, not further from Him. Do things that stretch you, whether that is going on a mission trip, making a pilgrimage, or stepping into something that requires faith and trust, because those experiences have a way of forming you at a deeper level.

At the same time, freedom without responsibility will slowly erode your life. The same decade that gives you space to explore is also the decade where your habits, your discipline, and your character are being formed in a lasting way. The way you handle your finances, the way you use your time, and the way you respond to God’s call in your life all begin to take shape here.

Living with an awareness that your life is a response to a vocation changes everything, because it reminds you that you are not just building a life for yourself, but responding to a call from God.

Freedom without responsibility doesn’t lead to a better story, it leads to a weaker foundation.

As I look back now, I can see that my twenties were ultimately a decade of building, where God was forming the foundation of my faith, my marriage, my family, and my calling, often in quiet and hidden ways that I did not fully recognize at the time.

Stepping into my thirties has made it clear that you do not rise to the level of your goals as much as you live on the level of the foundation you have built, and that foundation is strengthened not just by effort, but by grace.

If you are in your twenties, this is an opportunity to build something that can actually hold the weight of the life God is calling you into, and if you are further along, it is never too late to return to Him and strengthen the areas that matter most.

Giddy Up,

CHA

John Michael Lucido

Dread.

This is how I feel every single day when I wake up in the morning. As my alarm goes off and I trudge to the bathroom in a half-asleep death march, a sense of dread washes over me. Not anxiety. Not panic. Just the quiet, heavy weight of dread that settles on your chest before your feet even hit the floor.

Dread over everything I need to accomplish today. Love my wife well, really well, not just the distracted, half-present version of love that is easy to fall into when you are running on fumes. Be present for my kids. Not just physically in the room, but actually there, on the floor, making eye contact, putting the phone down. Crush it at work. Provide. Lead. Exercise, because if I do not take care of this body nobody else will and it will eventually fail the people counting on me. Budget. Keep the house from falling apart. Make sure the kids are fed, bathed, and not feral. And the list goes on and on, every single day, without a finish line in sight.

Sound familiar?

If you are a dad, I would bet everything I have that you know exactly what I am talking about. That feeling is not weakness. It is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It is the feeling of a man who takes his responsibilities seriously. It is the weight of a life that actually matters.

But here is the scariest part. It is only going to get heavier.

As your kids get older, the stakes get higher. The conversations get harder. The decisions get more consequential. When they are toddlers you are managing chaos. When they are teenagers you are shaping souls. As your family grows, the weight grows with it. As you step further into your role as a husband, father, and leader, more people are counting on you. More eyes are watching how you handle pressure, how you treat your wife, how you respond when things go sideways.

I am expecting our fourth child this spring. Four kids. And I will be honest with you, when I sit with what that means for my daily life, my weekly rhythms, my energy, my margins, it is a lot. The responsibility does not scare me in the sense that I want to run from it. It scares me because I love my family deeply and I do not want to fail them.

Maybe you feel the same way.

So what do we do with that dread? How do we get out of bed when the weight of it all is sitting on our chest before the day has even started?

One of my patrons is St. Josemaria Escriva. He is a priest, a father to thousands of spiritual sons and daughters, and a man who understands what it means to carry enormous responsibility every single day. He writes frequently about the moment of waking up in the morning, what he calls the “Heroic Minute.” The idea is simple but cuts deep. The moment your alarm goes off is the first battle of the day. And most men lose it before they even know the fight has begun, hitting snooze, rolling over, delaying the inevitable, starting the day already in retreat.

St. Josemaria’s antidote is a single word. When he wakes, the first thing he says is “Serviam”, Latin for “I will serve.”

That’s it. Two syllables. One decision. Made before your brain has had time to negotiate with you.

What a paradigm shift for a dad.

It transforms the moment your alarm goes off from a moment of dread into a moment of mission. It reframes the entire weight of your day. You are not a man being crushed under the demands of a life that is too big for you. You are a man who has been entrusted with something extraordinarily valuable, a wife, children, a family, and you are choosing to show up for them. Not because you have to. Because you say Serviam. I will serve.

Not service to a boss. Not service to a to-do list. Not the frantic, reactive kind of service that leaves you empty at the end of the day wondering where it all went. First, service to the Lord, and then to the people He has placed in your hands. Your wife. Your children. Your family. The people who remember not what you accomplish, but how you show up.

There is something else worth sitting with here. We tend to think of service as something we do alone. We white-knuckle our way through the morning, grind through the day, and collapse at night feeling like we ran the whole race by ourselves. But that is not the truth we have been given.

St. Josemaria reminds us of the words of Christ himself, “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). The God of the universe, who can demand the service of every creature in existence, instead gets on his knees and washes feet. He enters into the mess. He shows up. He serves.

And here is what wrecks me about that. He is still doing it. We serve a Lord who actually wants to get in the trenches with us. Who wants to serve us, His children. Who is not watching from a distance waiting for us to get it right, but walking alongside us in the chaos of the early morning, the hard conversations, the exhausted evenings, the moments when we have nothing left to give.

That truth changes everything about how I get out of bed in the morning.

I feel wiped. Drained. This season feels like a really heavy season. I imagine some of you feel the same way. The dread is real. The weight is real. And I am not going to pretend that saying a Latin word in the bathroom at 5am magically makes it disappear.

But it does something. It names the day before the day names you. It puts you in the posture of a servant before the world has a chance to put you in the posture of a victim. It reminds you, before the first crisis, before the first demand, before the first moment your kids need something you are not sure you have, that you are a man on mission.

That is what an Abba does. He does not wait until he feels ready. He does not wait until the dread passes. He gets up. He says Serviam. And he goes to war for the people he loves.

So tomorrow, when the alarm goes off, say it.

Serviam. I will serve.

And watch what it does to your day.

Giddy up.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido

Most men that I know and spend time with don’t lack a desire to grow or change.

From my experience, what they lack is the willingness to eliminate what’s holding them back.

This week I want to be able to talk about a few, short movements of the heart that are the difference between a mediocre dad and a zealous, driven father.

If you’re feeling stuck right now you might be tempted to think that it’s because you need to add more things to your life.

Yet it’s often deleting things, pruning away others that leads to the greatest abundance of fruit. Here are four things I have been praying about that men MUST STOP doing now.

1. Making excuses

If it matters to you, you will make time. I did not make up this phrase, but I certainly cling to it. As your life develops your time margins thin, give your time to things that develop your soul, your marriage, your family and your body

Most men are not short on desire, they are short on discipline. The reality is that your calendar reveals what you actually worship. Growth doesn’t happen accidentally, it happens when you ruthlessly prioritize what matters most and cut what doesn’t.

2. Having false pride

“I’m nothing. I have nothing to offer.” “Someone else would do this better than me” “If I talk about the good God has done through me, people might think I’m arrogant.” God wants to use you for greatness, let him!

This isn’t humility, it’s self-protection dressed up as virtue. True humility receives what God has given and puts it at His service without hesitation. The world doesn’t need more men playing small, it needs men who are willing to let God work powerfully through them.

3. Play it safe

The virtue of prudence doesn’t mean lack of risk. Prudence means risk in light of the things that matter. God and His People primarily.

Too many men confuse comfort with wisdom. But every major movement of God in your life will require some level of risk, sacrifice, and stepping into the unknown. If your life requires no courage, it’s probably not aligned with the mission God is inviting you into.

4. Be small minded

St. Josemaria had this to say about men who were small minded: “Small-mindedness has no home in the magnanimous heart, nor has meanness, nor egoistic calculation, nor self-interested trickery. The magnanimous person devotes all his strength, unstintingly, to what is worthwhile.”

Small-minded men think in terms of comfort, convenience, and self-preservation. Great men think in terms of mission, legacy, and sacrifice. God did not create you for a small life, so stop negotiating with mediocrity and start living with a magnanimous heart.

Here’s the invitation this week:

Pick one of these. Not all four. Just one.

Pick one or two, tell your wife, or brother and then start chasing after it with a practical actionable.

Then replace it with something concrete.

Want less excuses schedule your prayer into your calendar.

Want less false pride then step into something God is inviting you into.

Want less safety in your life- take one real risk this week.

Want less small thinking in your life be able to commit to something bigger than yourself.

You don’t need a new plan.

You need a decision.

And then you need to follow through.

Giddy up.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido

Turning thirty has me more nervous than any birthday I can remember..

As I wrote about last week in CHA, I am approaching my 30th birthday in just about a month.

I am not usually someone who cares much about my birthday. A nice dinner with my wife, a homemade dessert with my kids, and maybe grabbing drinks with a few buddies is usually the extent of my “celebration.”

This one feels different though. I am going into this birthday with a lot of fear because of what it represents for the next decade of my life.

As I wrote last week, my twenties were absolutely insane.

Conversion to Christ.
Dated, proposed to, and married my wife.
Had three children, one with special needs, and we are about to have our fourth in a few weeks.
Lived in three states and seven houses.
Worked four different jobs.
Discerned the direction of my family’s life.
Bought a house, sold it, and bought another.

Along with so many other monumental experiences.

But now I look toward my thirties, and I am scared.

In my twenties everything was constantly changing. Single to engaged to married. Married to father. College student to employee. Missionary to leader.

There was an unbelievable freedom. I could do whatever I wanted. Choose any path I saw fit. Live anywhere. Work wherever I wanted. Everything was in front of me.

A blank check. A book that was still unwritten.

But now everything is different.

I am committed to working for the apostolate I serve for the foreseeable future, in a role I could easily see myself in for the next three to five years. My wife and I have decided to plant our flag in Denver, Colorado and lay down deep roots. We have chosen the school our children will attend, and we will have two kids there starting next year. We bought the house we see ourselves living in for the next 15–20 years, maybe even longer. We have invested in the parish next to our home and are laying down roots there. We have formed deep relationships with friends who are becoming the “village” that will help raise our kids.

If I fast forward to my 40th birthday, ten years from now I expect to be working for the same organization, living in the same house, and attending the same parish and school we are part of now.

And that reality absolutely terrifies me.

After a decade of constant change and movement, the stability I see coming feels suffocating, boring, and mundane.

Yet deep down, I also know it is exactly what God desires for me.

If I am being honest with myself I am honest, the fear is not really about Denver, or my job, or the house we just bought.

In my twenties the challenge was movement.
Take risks. Move cities. Start things. Try things. Build something from nothing.

The challenge is to stay.

To stay faithful.
To stay committed.
To keep showing up to the same responsibilities day after day after day.

To make the same drive to school and to work every day.
To show up to the same office building every day.
To sit at the same dinner table every day.
To pray in the same chair, same chapel every day.

Every day for 10 years.

Anyone can sprint into a new adventure, however it takes a real man to be able endure the long race of raising a family, building a business, and living a healthy marriage.

Not for a year, but for decades.

Marriage. Fatherhood. Leadership. Faith. These are not ten month projects. They are thirty year, forty year, fifty year commitments.

And the more I have been thinking about turning thirty, the more I have realized that the calling of this decade is endurance. As our Lord states in Matthew 24:13 “He that endures to the end will be saved.”

This realization gave me an idea of how to celebrate my 30th birthday.

If my twenties were about building the foundation, my thirties are going to be about enduring on top of it.

So on my 30th birthday I am going to complete a 30 mile workout challenge.

Thirty miles across three different disciplines that have become a big part of my life over the last few years. Running, rowing, and the ski erg.

14 miles running.
10 miles on the rowing erg.
6 miles on the ski erg.

Broken up into 10 rounds.

1.4 mile run
1 mile on the rower
1k on the ski erg

For a total of 30 miles.

Each round will be a prayer for a year of my thirties.

Round #1 offered for age 30→31.
Round #2 offered for 31→32.
And so on.

Ten rounds. Ten prayers. One for each year of the decade I am stepping into.

It’s not really about the miles.

It’s about endurance.

Endurance is the virtue that will carry me through this next decade of life. Endurance in marriage. Endurance in fatherhood. Endurance in faith. Endurance in the work God has entrusted to me.

And I did not want to do it alone.

So I sent the workout to a handful of close friends and invited them to join me. Some may show up for the whole thing. Some might jump in for a few rounds. Some may just run a couple miles with me along the way.

But the point is the same.

No one runs a thirty mile race alone. And no one runs a decade of life alone either.

So this challenge will be part workout, part prayer, and part reminder that the next decade will not be about chasing something new.

It will be about staying faithful to what God has already given me.

And if you are a dad reading this and feeling a little stuck right now, maybe this is your invitation too.

You do not have to do thirty miles.

But find something that pushes you. Something that reminds you that your life still has movement, challenge, and growth ahead of it. Something that marks the next season you are stepping into.

Sign up for a race.
Train for a big hike.
Do a hard physical challenge.
Start something that requires endurance.

Because fatherhood, marriage, faith, and leadership are not sprints.

They are long races.

And sometimes the best way to step into the next decade of life is to start by choosing something hard and running toward it.

Looking forward to seeing you next week for another CHA, and an update on my training for this challenge but more importantly my training to step into the responsibility God is laying out before me.

Giddy up.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido

Our move up to Kansas (it was awesome to not own anything)

When I look back at my twenties, it feels like a decade of constant motion.

Since April of 2016 (when I turned twenty), the following has happened.

I gave my life to Christ in a deeper way and began living seriously as a Christian and Catholic.
I began sharing Christ and evangelizing.
I got engaged.
I graduated college.
I moved to Kansas.
I got married.
We had our first child.
I got promoted to a new role.
We had another child. This one with special needs.
I got promoted again.
We moved from Kansas to Colorado.
I started and finished my MBA.
We bought our first house.
We renovated that house.
We sold that house.
We bought another house.
We had our third child.
I stepped into another new leadership role.
And now my wife is pregnant with our fourth child, who will be here in just a few weeks.

Looking back on the decade, we lived in seven different houses across three states. There was not a single year that went by without some major life transition.
Graduation. Marriage. Engagement. Children. Moving states. Changing jobs. It has been absolute insanity. Constant change. Very little stability.

At times it has felt like driving sixty miles down the highway and then throwing the steering wheel out the window. Or as the great Jim Gaffigan once described parenting: “It’s like drowning. And then someone hands you a baby.”

But here is the thing.

I would actually argue that this is how your twenties are supposed to feel.

Your twenties are a decade where you are meant to move.

In your twenties you are supposed to try things.
You are supposed to take risks.
You are supposed to begin building a life.

When I tell people how old I am, they are often surprised.

“No way you’re still in your twenties and already have kids.”

And I usually respond, “Yep. And I had them all while I was married too.”That normally gets a chuckle. Or at least a slightly uncomfortable laugh. But I think the reason people are surprised is because it stands in stark contrast to how the world defines the twenties.

The modern world treats your twenties like an extended adolescence.

Like college, but without classes.
Better tasting alcohol.
And more money to spend.

A decade to delay responsibility.
A decade to chase experiences without commitment.
A decade to maximize freedom while minimizing responsibility.

Travel. Party. Eat. Date casually. Move cities a few times. Never settle down. Become a digital nomad.

The underlying assumption is that responsibility is something to avoid for as long as possible.

Marriage can wait.
Children can wait.
Commitment can wait.

Just “find yourself.”

But compare that vision with the life of our Lord.

Jesus spent his twenties in a life of quiet and hidden preparation.

It was not yet His time. But He knew the time was coming.

Scripture tells us in Luke 2:52 that Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” He was working alongside His father Joseph in the carpenter shop.

Meeting people.
Learning the rhythms of ordinary life.
Growing in discipline, wisdom, and obedience to the Father.

Preparing.

Then when his next decade began at thirty, everything changed.

When the waters of the Jordan passed over Him at His baptism, Jesus stepped into His mission with clarity and conviction.

He was ready.

Because the previous decade had prepared Him for it.

Which reveals something important.

The vision of your twenties that the world offers is very different from the vision Christ offers.

The world says your twenties are for avoiding responsibility.
The Christian life says your twenties are where you begin learning how to carry responsibility.

The world says maximize freedom and keep every option open.
The Christian life says begin making meaningful commitments.

The world says chase experiences and novelty.
The Christian life says build virtue and character.

The world says focus on discovering yourself.
The Christian life says focus on discovering your vocation.

The world says delay marriage and family as long as possible.
The Christian life says discern seriously the life God may be calling you to.

The world says work is mainly about lifestyle and income.
The Christian life says work is preparation for service and mission.

The world says friendships revolve around entertainment and convenience.
The Christian life says friendships should sharpen your faith, character, and courage.

The world says faith is something you add to life if you have time.
The Christian life says faith becomes the center that orders everything else.

As I write this, something else is happening. In just a couple of weeks I will turn thirty. Which means that this decade of motion, chaos and instability will give way to something totally different.

In my twenties- I laid a powerful foundation. Faith in Christ, a Family, a Calling to full time ministry and A Home to raise that Family in.

This next decade is learning how to stand on it, and leading the people that God has already entrusted to me. Stewarding what I have built, and turning into something incredible for God.

If your twenties were well lived, you enter your thirties ready not drifting.

If you want to take control of your life, family, and marriage and lay down direction, vision, and intentionality, keep coming back for more.

Giddy up.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido

I have a confession to make.

In the winter, when it is cold outside in Colorado in the early AM, I often opt to do my morning run on my treadmill in my basement gym rather than brave the sub-freezing temps outside. A coworker was getting rid of the treadmill and generously offered to give it to me. Every time I run on it, I am convinced it’s going to break, as each step produces a sound that is best described as the machine version of the sound my 60-year-old dad makes when he gets out of a chair.

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As I am stomping away in the early AM looking at the blank white wall of my basement, I have been turning on some motivational YouTube videos to help pass the time and keep me motivated to run 5–7 miles on a treadmill at 5 AM.

These videos are usually a montage of people like Chris Williamson, Jocko Willink, David Goggins, Andrew Huberman, Matthew McConaughey, Tony Robbins, and Andy Elliott screaming the following sentiments or similar ones at me:

• “Forget the pain and work harder.”

• “Pain is temporary.”

• “Outwork everyone else.”

• “You can’t hurt me.”

• “Everyone else is weak. You are strong.”

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A few years ago I read David Goggins’s book, Can’t Hurt Me, and absolutely loved it. If you haven’t read it, it is a memoir that traces his transformation from an abused, overweight young man with little direction into a Navy SEAL and world-class endurance athlete through radical accountability, discipline, and mental toughness. Through stories of extreme physical challenges and personal hardship, Goggins argues that most people operate at only about 40% of their potential and that embracing suffering is the path to unlocking true resilience and greatness.

At the time of reading, I was a brand-new dad and a young 23-year-old. I lacked any sort of discipline, ate poorly, and largely was operating like a fraternity kid who also happened to be a husband and father. I fled from anything that was uncomfortable in life, had trouble getting up early, and lacked a major sense of responsibility.

For an undisciplined, soft, and scared 23-year-old kid who needed to step up to the plate of his life, the mindset of Goggins and Jocko and these characters was exactly what I needed at the time.

To be willing to do hard things, to sacrifice comforts for discomforts, to take on responsibility and discipline myself to handle more of it were major mindset shifts that needed to take place in that season of my life.

Yet as the years passed and the kids began to pile on, and their mindset began to sink deeper into my head and heart, I began to recognize that maybe this “Can’t Hurt Me” mindset wasn’t just helping me, but maybe it was hurting me as well.

But over time, I began to sense that the very armor that had helped me stand up was slowly making it harder for me to kneel. The mindset that taught me to conquer weakness did not teach me how to receive love, extend patience, or live with limits. As a young father trying to build a life from chaos, Can’t Hurt Me was gasoline on a fire that desperately needed to burn. But as the years passed, I started to wonder whether a life fueled only by intensity could actually sustain the kind of presence, gentleness, and endurance that marriage, fatherhood, and the Christian life quietly demand. It forced me to ask a deeper question: not just how to become strong, but what kind of strength actually leads to holiness, freedom, and love.

What I found most damaging about the Extreme Ownership and Can’t Hurt Me “religion” was the hyper-focus on the self. It promoted self-reliance in an attractive package known as self-betterment and self-help.

In the book, Goggins states the following line: “No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.”

This line perfectly articulates the danger of this line of thinking. At times, as a father, husband, leader, and employee, I can be tempted to think this way. I have to dig my own way out of this hole myself. If I don’t help myself, no one will. If I don’t figure this out, no one is coming to help me. This can quickly get out of hand.

The reality couldn’t be more different than what Goggins states: “No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.”

Here is how the message of Christ fights directly against this mindset:

Goggins: No one is coming to save you
Christ: A Savior has come for you

Goggins: Conquer yourself
Christ: Deny yourself

Goggins: Become unbreakable
Christ: Become willing to be broken for love

Goggins: Pain is weakness leaving the body
Christ: Suffering can become redemptive

Goggins: Carry everything yourself
Christ: My yoke is easy, my burden is light

Goggins: Earn your worth through discipline
Christ: You are already beloved

Goggins: Need nothing
Christ: Apart from me you can do nothing

Goggins: Control your life
Christ: Entrust your life to me

Goggins: Dominate your circumstances
Christ: Remain faithful within them

Goggins: Survive
Christ: Live abundantly

If you are anything like me, you do not need permission to become less serious. You do not need encouragement to coast or avoid hard things. Most men I know are already carrying more than they can sustain, quietly trying to hold everything together on their own.

What you may need, what I needed, is permission to stop trying to be your own savior.

The invitation of Christ is not to abandon discipline or responsibility, but to anchor them somewhere deeper than your own willpower. Keep doing hard things. Keep sacrificing for your family. But do it as a beloved son, not as a man trying to prove his worth. Lay down the illusion that everything depends entirely on you, because it does not.

So here is the challenge this week. Name one burden you have been carrying alone and bring it into the light. Pray about it honestly. Tell your spouse. Ask a friend for help. Go to confession. Not as an act of defeat, but as an act of trust.

The goal is not to build a life where nothing can hurt you. It is to build a life so rooted in love that even when you are hurt, you are not alone and you do not break.

If you want to take control of your life, family, and marriage and lay down direction, vision, and intentionality, keep coming back for more.

Giddy up.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido

I know. Dave Ramsey would have thought it was a great idea. He would have even co-signed the loan himself for me to get it.

Now at some point in Call Him Abba lore that story will be shared. Today is not that day.

No, today is a day for a different story.

I met my wife when I was 18 years old. We dated throughout our undergraduate years at Texas A&M University. At A&M there was an off-campus neighborhood that lots of people in Greek life and student government lived in called the Historic District. A mix of rentals, beautiful large single-family homes, and spacious parks — it was a college kids’ dream neighborhood.

My wife and I both lived in this neighborhood the back half of college, a short bike ride away from each other. We have tons of incredible memories in this neighborhood: playing catch at the park, having picnics, walking to football games, and heading back from the bars together.

Our houses were separated from each other by a large park called Bryson Park. To get to her house I would ride my moped past the park every time, and then past a beautiful Southern home that was directly across from it.

A huge front porch, a giant yard, brown shutters, and a prime location made it totally picturesque. Even more gorgeous, though, was the fact that there was a small creek running through the large front yard of the home.

But the most eye-catching part? A golden brown, handcrafted bridge built to go over the creek in the middle of the yard. Destined for the front cover of Southern Living, it was the crown jewel of the neighborhood.

As my now wife and I would walk, bike, and moped past the house every day, we would daydream about how one day we would own the home- watching future kids run up and down the large front lawn and walking to Aggie football games. And every time we passed the house, without fail, my then-girlfriend, now-wife would comment on how much she loved the bridge.

As day by day passed and I continued to pass the bridge house each day, I got an idea I couldn’t shake.

What if we had a date on the bridge?

Crazy, I know. But I loved that kind of stuff.

So one day after class I drove my moped over, parked it on the street, and walked up to the front door.

Knock, knock.

No one answered for a while.

But then slowly but surely the door opened, and there stood an elderly man and a younger woman.

I should have prepared more for this moment, I thought. But it was too late.

I explained quickly -and without making much sense - that I wanted to take my girlfriend on a date on their bridge. The elderly man and younger woman looked confused.

I slowed down and re-explained. My girlfriend and I live in the neighborhood, we are students, and she absolutely loves your bridge. Could I take her on a date on it?

The wheels started to turn.

The older man stuck out his hand and shook mine. He said, “Absolutely.” And then handed me a couple of $20 bills.

Later that week this happened: table, chairs, a rug, food, flowers. On a bridge. In a random person’s yard.

The look on my face says it all = legendary.

So here is the deal this week: be creative in your marriage. Take a real risk, not a vague intention. Plan something without being asked. Write the note. Make the reservation. Recreate a memory or invent a new one. Do something that feels slightly inconvenient, slightly uncomfortable, and totally unnecessary and do it anyway.

I’ll be honest: I’ve failed at this more often than I’d like since having kids. Somewhere between diapers, bedtime routines, early mornings, and sheer exhaustion, it’s been easy to default to logistics instead of love. To confuse being present in the same room with being intentional. Creativity takes energy, and lately, I’ve too often chosen efficiency over effort.

But here’s what I’m relearning. Love doesn’t stay alive by playing it safe or waiting for the “right season.” The couples who seem lucky are usually just the ones who decided to act. So this week, I’m choosing one concrete thing and doing it. and I’m inviting you to do the same. Knock on the door. Ask the question. Roll the dice. Set the table on the bridge and trust that God meets us when we move first.

If you want to take control of your life, family and marriage and lay down direction, vision and intentionality keep coming back for some more. Giddy up.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido

As we walked out of the restaurant, a group of young women stopped my wife and I saying this exact thing.

We were out to eat at a new hip restaurant in the Washington Park District of Denver, Colorado. It was a brand new Mexican place that is incredibly popular with Denver young adults and young professionals.

Always difficult to find a seat, full of gaggling girls 2 margarita’s deep on a girls night out, or a 2nd Hinge date after the initial ice cream meet up went well, the place was popping on a Friday evening.

We certainly looked the part. I was wearing a denim shirt that many 20-30 something Denverites had said “that’s a cool shirt” a phrase that caused me to wear it far too frequently. I had one of those rope hats on that all the guys are wearing (you know the type). Had to show the picture below just in case. Mostly though because of the incredible lettuce coming out the back from this dude’s hat, little dual exhaust coming out both ends. Gorgeous.

My wife was also looking the part, wearing some combination of a shirt and jeans that looked great. This is my best definition of what she was wearing. It is utterly lacking in detail, because I am not totally sure how to describe women’s clothing in a way men understand. Long story, short, she was looking hot.

We fit in great with the 20-30-40 crowd in Denver. We ordered a couple of cocktails, some overpriced guacamole and were having a great time. People were probably looking at me going, “that guy probably drives a Toyota 4-Runner, and owns at least 5 different types of vests.”

And then the scream.

From under our table, someone screamed. People to the left of us looked over at us.

People from the right looked over at us.

My wife leaned down under the table and grabbed the culprit.

My 5 month son.

You see we were out on the town that night, but our son was still nursing so of course we had to bring him with us. I don’t drive a Toyota 4-Runner, I drive a Toyota Sienna Mini-van and we valet parked it.

When I dropped it off at the valet stand, the high school kid got in it to park it and said “my mom used to drive one of these when I was young, great memories.” Now my rope hat didn’t look as cool.

My wife sipped on her elderflower cocktail, and I drank my giant margarita (definitely felt that one, driving the mini-van home that night) as our son joined the 20-30-40’s out on the town for a fun Friday night.

As we enjoyed passing the baby back and forth throughout our dinner, a group of the gaggling girls next to us began to really stare. In public, the rule of thumb I go by is you get two glances at a stranger. One to get an understanding of what’s going on, the second to confirm the first glance.

They took far more than two. At one point, it seemed like they were staring at my wife, baby and I. Then they started pulling out their phones, and laughing, looking at their phones and then looking at my wife.

As they wrapped up their dinner, they walked by and looking at the baby said “he is so cute”, and walked out of the restaurant.

We shook off the weird encounter, finished our dinner, paid and then walked out the front to the valet counter. And I muttered under my breath “it’s the grey minivan” to the valet guy, I noticed that the gaggling girls from inside were standing next to us also waiting on their car.

One of them stopped by wife and said ““Oh my gosh, I cannot believe it’s you!”

My wife looked very confused. The girl responded “Aren’t you Bobbi Althoff?”

After an awkward moment of my wife explaining that her name was Emily, not Bobbi, the gaggling girls all gaggled some more and then explained that they had thought my wife was Bobbi Althoff- a popular female influencer and podcaster who hosts the “The Really Good Podcast” where she interviews celebrities like Drake, Shaq, Wiz Khalifa and others.

If they would have just waited for the valet guy to pull up with our minivan that would have guaranteed that they knew my wife wasn’t a famous influencer.

As we drove home, we laughed to ourselves about the whole situation.

But then the conversation started to go deeper.

Call Her …. Daddy

As we drove home, my wife began to research this Bobbi girl, and look at her podcast. She immediately texted her college aged sister- recanting the story of how the gaggling girls mistook her for Bobbi Althoff.

Of course, her younger sister knew all about Bobbi Althoff and her podcast, said that her and all her friends are huge listeners. Not being on social media besides LinkedIn, and Strava ( and a little bit of GoodReads) this was fascinating to me. That an entire generation of women was learning what it meant to be a women from a series of podcasts with an already once divorced 27 year old mother of two.

Yet nothing could prepare me for what I learned next. As I opened up my Podcast app and searched my wife’s supposed doppleganger podcast, I came across a recommended Podcast entitled “Call Her Daddy.” I had never heard of it before, so I did what any Millennial would do, I googled it.

What I found floored me.

• “Call Her Daddy” in 2021, 2022, 2023 was ranked the number one podcast for women in the US.

• Second most listened to Podcast on Spotify behind Joe Rogan.

• Host, Alex Cooper, is on the Forbes top 20 creators list with a net worth of $20 million

• In the last 4 years the Podcast has signed a $60 million deal with Spotify, and more recently a $100 million deal with SiriusXM

• 76% of listeners are women under the age of 40

If you are not familiar with the podcast, it is a self described “open and honest dialogue about topics created by women for women that are too ‘taboo’ to be discussed in main stream media.” Discussions revolve around topics such as “sex talk, tricking men into taking medication for sexual advances, multiple partner sex, sending ‘nudes’ “ and a variety of other topics that would leave most baby boomers thinking they were listening to a pornographic movie. The most recent episode is entitled “drugs, dogs and d$ck appointments” if that paints a good enough picture for you.

Perhaps most troubling however, is the name.

When asked about the idea behind the name “Call Her Daddy”, host Alex Cooper “suggested women should be seen as powerful by calling them — rather than men — “Daddy.”¹

“Daddy Gang” is the term Cooper uses to describe the show’s fanbase. When asked further the host said “it is meant to convey the idea that women can be dominant and in control both in life and in the bedroom, and that they are just as capable as men.”

And just remember it is this content that is the 4th biggest podcast in the world. And the biggest for female audiences. It is this idea that is being sown in the hearts and minds of 20 and 30 somethings all around the world that have been so hurt, and broken in their life (probably by men) that they would rather be called “Daddy” than find a man heroic enough to be called “Father.”

The word, Dad, or Daddy, or Father, I would argue is the most powerful word in the world. There is no greater name under the earth than the name of FatherAnd the world, and the culture is so desperate to destroy this idea, this word, that they will take that word, and twist into a sexualized, confused, painful, domineering word that men should call their female counterpart in the bedroom.

Call Him … Abba

What I want to do is to reclaim this word.

Taking back “Daddy”

In order to take back the word Dad or Father, we have to own the meaning of it. We have to live a life, and possess a character that is worthy of being called so high a name. A Father is one who is responsible, who has been given a duty to protect and to provide. A Father is one who lives with the gravitas of knowing that others rely on him. A Father is a creator, bringing life to that which once had none. A Father is willing to take ownership of his life, and the lives of those who are entrusted to him.

It is one thing to be called Dad, but it is quite another to live like one. Over the next year, my hope is to build a community of men who are dedicated to this idea. Who are disgusted by the Call Her Daddy mindset but are inspired by the Call Him Abba mantra.

If this is something you want, if this a name you want to not only be called but to possess, please like and subscribe.

If you know a man who needs to hear this message, share it with him, it could be the first time he puts on and owns the nametag of “Abba” in his family, work or life.

Last week in Call Him Abba- we dove into a simple yet effective agenda for a Weekly Tactical Agenda for your Marriage. If you missed it make sure to check it out→ Want to Save your Family?

This was created in an effort to bring order, intentionality and direction to the chaos of life known as being the father to 3 almost 4 children 6 years and younger. This week we take a look at the Quarterly Marriage Meeting.

Just the same as the Weekly Marriage Tactical Meeting- these ideas are drawn from two sources. The first from EOS: Entrepeunerial Operating System, a management system that brings traction, vision and clarity to businesses, organizations and corporations. The second is the book: The Well Ordered Family by Conor Gallagher.
Conor is the father of 16 children (yes that’s not a typo, he actually has 16 children, don’t ask me how it’s possible- it just is.) In addition to a full life at home, he is the CEO of multiple businesses including Tan Books, a publishing company that he turned profitable again after years of relative obscurity in the Catholics/ Christian publishing space.

His book had a powerful impact on me, and is the place where I borrowed the phrase working on the family vs. working in the family.

Purpose of Quarterly Marriage Meeting

1. Distills Annual Goals into 90 day segments

The research is clear that we as humans cannot operate well and create meaningful results on long term horizons. Goals set for a year out are so far out and abstract that they seem daunting and lack clear time bound actions. Behavioral psychology recommends 90 day windows because it short enough to be meaningful and motivating but long enough to have a run way to accomplish the task. I would argue that in family life this is even more critical. Family life is defined by seasons. Seasons of a new born, seasons where kids aren’t sleeping, seasons of kids in school and out of school. And they change frequently. One minute, every one is sleeping the night, the next every kid decided to be an anarchist and wake you up every hour. Quarterly family goals along for planning in line with seasonal changes and rhythms of family life.

2. Promotes Time of Reflection, Recalibration and Recommitment

The research backs this up as well. Performance psychology articulates that frequent and consistent feedback loops consistently outperform delayed evaluation processes. When you have a time of Quarterly time of Reflection it allows for recognition of what went right, and how we should duplicate those efforts in the next quarter. It allows for similar reflection on what went wrong and how we can restructure to ensure that those same mistakes aren’t duplicated in the next season.

3. Creates a consistent point of Renewal for the Marriage

Having a time set aside (more on this below) to be together as husband/wife creates a stability of knowing that there is a space for large and substantial conversations that need to happen that do not fit into the short, and fast weekly tactical meeting. The weekly marriage meeting is for decisions, troubleshooting and short term planning and execution. It is not the time for vision, and direction as the immediate needs of the family need to be handled in the moment and not put off. The consistency of knowing that there is a time set aside for longer form discussions on the family prevents fear and trepidation that these long term issues will not be passed over for the sake of the tyranny of the urgent.

In case you are new here, Call Him Abba is a weekly newsletter delivered straight to your inbox or live in the Substack app that gives you weekly insights, real-life applications, and my own failures as a father, husband, employee, friend and son. Our motto at Call Him Abba is to create a generation of men who are unafraid to run or flee from responsibilities but who are locked into living with gravitas, the weight of responsibility. This is community built by Dad's for Dad's based on the deep conviction that to change the world you start with the Father. Pilot article can be found here→ Call Him Abba- The meaning behind the Brand

Agenda for Marriage Quarterly Tactical Meetings

A Half-Day Commitment to Working on the Family

1. Plan Ahead and Protect the Time

This meeting is not optional or casual.

Get a babysitter. Plan it weeks in advance.
Block at least five hours, ideally a full half day.

My wife and I prefer to leave the house entirely. It is incredibly hard to work on the family while you are physically in the family environment. The distractions are constant. Kids, noise, chores, and the natural pull of daily rhythms make depth almost impossible.

Leaving the house signals that this time matters.

2. Start with a Real Date

Begin with a proper date, not a rushed meal or coffee in a crowded space.

Go somewhere intentional. A nice brunch. A favorite spot. Somewhere special.

Let the quality of the date mirror the importance of the moment.

This is not business time yet.

Reconnect. Laugh. Make jokes. Remember that you actually like each other. As the date unfolds, allow reflection to emerge naturally.

• What were the successes, graces, and joys of the last 90 days?

• What were the challenges, rough spots, or disappointments?

• What did we learn this quarter?

• What lessons are we taking with us into the next season?

3. Move to Prayer and Reflection

After good conversation and great food, move somewhere quieter. Ideally a chapel.

Spend 30 minutes to an hour in prayer and reflection, asking hard but necessary questions:

• Where did we fail to love one another well this quarter?

• Where did we fail in leading our family?

• Are we living in alignment with our family mission statement?

• Are we equally yoked in responsibilities and commitments in the home?

• Are we investing in our children appropriately for this season?

• Are we pursuing excellence in our professional callings?

4. Transition to the Business Portion

Only after reflection do you move into execution.

Find a space to work. A coffee shop, library room, or anywhere that allows focus.
If possible, use a space with a whiteboard for brainstorming and mapping ideas.

5. Review the Previous Quarter

Start by looking backward.

• Did you hit your goals from last quarter?

• Were the goals measurable?

• Could you clearly say yes or no to whether they were accomplished?

For a goal to count as a true quarterly goal, it must be measurable.
At the end of the quarter, you should be able to state plainly whether you hit it or not.

If you can’t, it wasn’t a goal. It was a wish.

Name what worked. Name what didn’t. Learn from both.

6. Review the Family Mission Statement and the Next 90 Days

Before setting new goals, re-anchor yourselves. Read the family mission statement out loud. Then open the calendar and look ahead at the next ninety days. Identify the seasons you are entering into:

• Travel

• Work intensity

• School schedules

• Sports

• New babies

• Busy or quiet rhythms

Ask directly:

• What seasons or events do we need to prepare for now?

• Where do we need to intentionally pull back so we can enter more deeply elsewhere?

• What commitments need to be protected?

• What commitments may need to be paused or removed?

Finally ask:

What needs to be accomplished in the next ninety days so that we remain on pace to hit our annual goals?

7. Set 3–5 Quarterly Goals

With the season clearly defined, set three to five goals for the quarter.

Fewer forces clarity. More creates dilution.

These goals should be concrete, measurable, and achievable within the next ninety days.

Examples of family goals my family has set in the past:

1. Write out and establish a morning routine to get our oldest child to school on time

2. Achieve a specific savings goal for home renovation and increasing our emergency fund (with exact numbers defined)

3. Identify and complete two home projects (quote, hire, and complete the home office and chicken coop)

4. Set up Judah’s trust fund and explore options for long-term funding solutions

5. Limit Amazon purchases to one per week by batching all orders into a single purchase day

At the end of the quarter, you should be able to clearly say whether each goal was accomplished or not.

If you can’t, refine the goal.

8. Assign an Owner to Each Goal

Every goal needs a clear owner from the marriage

This does not mean one spouse carries the entire burden. It means one person is responsible for ensuring the goal moves forward, gets reviewed, and does not quietly disappear.

For each goal, decide:

• Who owns it

• Who tracks progress

• Who raises the flag if it begins to slip

Ownership creates clarity.
Clarity prevents resentment.
Shared goals without ownership rarely get executed.

Want to find a way to save your family through intentionality, basic disciplines and simplicity while getting closer to your spouse spiritually and emotionally along the way?

Keep reading to discover the basic weekly marital tactical meeting agenda, quarterly meeting agenda and annual review agenda that will create stability in the midst of chaos for you and your family.

Don’t have a family? No problem- these can be easily adjusted for seasons of singleness just as easily as every vocation in life needs precision and intentional focus to create freedom to pursue the right priorities.

In case you are new here, Call Him Abba is a weekly newsletter delivered straight to your inbox or live in the Substack app that gives you weekly insights, real-life applications, and my own failures as a father, husband, employee, friend and son. Our motto at Call Him Abba is to create a generation of men who are unafraid to run or flee from responsibilities but who are locked into living with gravitas, the weight of responsibility. This is community built by Dad's for Dad's based on the deep conviction that to change the world you start with the Father. Pilot article can be found here→ Call Him Abba- The meaning behind the Brand

Last week in CHA we discussed how as I was beginning to experience success and results in my work: my family life was a hot mess. Chaos, crying, constantly overwhelmed and living in the rut of life known as munchkin land: having 3 soon to be 4 kids under the age of 6.

During this season- my wife and I recognized that we needed more structure, more order and higher levels of intentionality. We were stuck in a cycle of working in the family and never taking time to work on the family.

This realization drove change and ownership in my thinking and created a clear necessity for something that could actually drive clarity and intentionality.

It was around this same time- that my organization began adopting a operating management system called EOS- Entrepreneurial Operating System. In its simplest form it is an operational system that is used by companies to create structures for meetings, personnel decisions, and metrics that align with the core vision, culture, and values of that organization. As I was learning this system and seeing fruits in the workplace, I started tossing around the idea with a couple buddies about taking the structure of the meetings and bringing them into my marriage. Some laughed. Others kind of liked it but thought their wives would hate it. Me- I went home and started building out an agenda.

First things first I knew we needed a Family Vision. A company motto.
Apple Inc: “We believe that business, at its best, serves the public good, empowers people around the world, and binds us together as never before”
Amazon: "Earth's most customer-centric company," focusing on selection, price, and convenience, while empowering businesses and creators, with a core aim to continually raise the bar for the customer experience through technology and innovation”

The Lucido Family needed one.

So we got a babysitter, went to a chapel then a coffee house and tried to write it out. After a lot of cross outs, arguing about words that didn’t really mean anything and a few jabs at each other we landed on one.

Lucido Family Mission Statement: Let God disciple us, Disciple each other, Disciple our children and through that, our family can disciple others!

Now that we had our North Star, we began building out a weekly and quarterly marriage meeting cadence. At our weekly marriage meeting we break up our time into the following:

Here’s the agenda.

1. Read the Family Mission Statement

We start by reading our mission statement out loud.

This immediately sets the tone. This isn’t a vent session or a logistics dump. It reminds us what we’re aiming at and gives us a filter for every decision that follows.

2. Review Quarterly Goals (more to come on this in the next newsletter including how to run a family Quartely Rocks Meeting)

If we feel like we aren’t on pace with these to hit before the quarter ends we will swing it down to IDS section.

3. Looking Behind and Looking Ahead
Mind-
Body-
Soul-

We review last week commitments to grow in Mind (some smart goal for example reading 15 mins before bed, instead of phone usage), Body (only drink alcohol 1x this week) and Soul- (Emily, pray the rosary on the way to get kids from school) and then we make commitments in the same area for the next week. Sometimes they are the same from the previous week and sometimes they are similar.

4. Spiritual Check-In

A short check in of how we are doing spiritually. An opportunity to share graces, prayer or spiritual needs with each other. This is Emily’s favorite part of the meeting and my least favorite haha.

5. Calendar Walk thru (weekly, monthly, quarterly)

We look at the family calendar together and if they are things that need discussing they get dropped down to the issues list.

6. Identify, Discuss, Solve

We walk through the issues we have created for the meeting such as Judah’s birthday in 2 weeks. What are we going to buy him, are we doing a party, what are we going to cook and etc. Or bigger items like planning for a large purchase, having people over or talking about parenting a specific child.

7. To Do List

During the IDS section we create To Do’s for each other to accomplish throughout the week. Such as JM order the chicken feed and put in coop, Emily call Judah’s therapist and schedule eye appt. Then the following week we check to make sure the To Do’s were done.

8. Close in a short prayer

So give it a try with your spouse. Or if you don’t have a spouse do a meeting with yourself. Make sure to type out the agenda so that you can track accountability and success in these areas. My wife and I are now on Year Two of these meetings and they are absolutely powerful.

Men take hold of your family, led like a man who has responsibilities and do not let chaos and disorder take ahold your life and wife.

Dedicate time to work on the family.

Next week we will talk about quarterly marital agenda’s and goal setting for family life.

If you want to take control of your life, family and marriage and lay down direction, vision and intentionality keep coming back for some more. Giddy up.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido

My work was ordered, focused, and producing fruit.
My home was chaotic, reactive, and slowly drifting.

When I looked honestly at how much time and intentionality I was giving to my work, I had to confront a harder question. How much time was I actually putting toward my family, not just in presence, but in leadership? I knew how to build vision, create structure, and drive outcomes at work. At home, I was mostly reacting.

That question became the starting point for everything that follows.

How much time do you put into your work?

Forty to fifty hours a week. Some weeks closer to thirty five. Other weeks closer to fifty five.

If you are anything like me, it can be hard to tell whether you are a workaholic or someone who simply loves the act of building and producing. Either way, choosing to step away from work requires a real decision of the will, especially when you want to be fully present to your family.

Most days look like a full workday from 8am to 5pm. And then, some nights, logging back on in the evening to put a bow on a few loose ends or respond to a handful of emails. I put a lot of time into my work.

There is a phrase in the for-profit space- I originally heard it from Michael Hyatt in the Book “Free to Focus” that states “Working in the Business, vs. working on the business.”
This describes the difference between spending time on the day to day operations of a business: the meetings, the urgent issues, the budget, the emails and the immediate concerns that keep the organization and business “running.” This contrasts with working on the business which is centered around establishing vision for the company, alignment, long term solutions and direction.

In my work I began taking 1 day per quarter to step away from the “working in the business” to “working on the business.” I would get out of my specific office, and go to another office building or the public library removing myself from the craziness of day to day operations.

I would spend the time dreaming, thinking and casting vision for my direction for the next quarter. What things need to emphasized with my teams, what workflows need to be optimized, where was I getting distracted with the urgent that was preventing me from doing the important? What things could only I do to move the needle?

As I began to experience success with these days in my work life and saw growth in my career, my family was rapidly growing. A year and some change ago my wife and I had 3 kids 4 and under. One with significant special needs. Medical bills galore. Multiple long term hospital stays. House destroyed and messy all the time. Laundry over flowing. Cross country moves. Bought a house. Sold the house. Bought another house, moved into that one.

Buying cars-then cars breaking down, more groceries purchased than a a school cafeteria, oh yep- pregnant with another kid throw them in there. Then kid’s activities, school, family budgeting- it was becoming wildly unmanage-able. As I looked down the pipe at the future, the chaos seemed to have no end.

My wife and I chatted, and we knew we needed more structure, more order and higher levels of intentionality. We were stuck in a cycle of working in the family and never taking time to work on the family.

In my work I was feeling ordered, driven, locked in and fulfilled. At home I was feeling out of control, unmanageable, reckless and chaotic. Was leaving work excited about seeing results, feeling as if the wins were starting to pile up for me. Getting home I was feeling disappointed with the craziness, and hungover with the responsibilities that seemed never ending.

My man-hood was being challenged. Either step up to the plate and find some solutions. Or head the bench before even swinging the bat. I knew my wife was looking to me for order, but did I have what it takes to provide that?

As I thought about how much time I was putting towards my work- I began to look at how much time I was working for my family. Not doing dishes, or putting kids to bed. But really treating my family like a business that I was running. Treating myself as a CEO of the family. It was my job to set the vision for the family. It was my job to make sure that we knew the direction we were heading. It was my job to choose intentionally the things we say yes to, and the things we say no to. To evaluate opportunity costs of decisions we were making or not making in the family. To determine what things we were going to include in our family culture and which things to leave out.

This responsibility began to inspire action in myself. To take one the thing that necessitates changes and drives outcome: ownership.

I began to dedicate time to work on the family.

If you find yourself caught in this contrast- you are going to want to lock in and wait for next week’s Call Him Abba, where we will dive into the practical’s of what this looks like.

I will share my wife and I’s weekly marital tactical meeting agenda, quarterly meetings agenda, family mission statement as well as many mistakes made in the process.

If you want to take control of your life, family and marriage and lay down direction, vision and intentionality this is the spot for you. Giddy up.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido

The Days In Between

My favorite time of year is the three or four days between Christmas Day and the beginning of the national conference my work hosts every New Year.

No work.
Steady rhythms around the home.
Ample space for reflection, prayer, and time with family.

During the normal school year grind, my mornings usually start early. I wake up before anyone else is moving and get my workout in while the house is still dark so that once the kids and my wife wake up, Dad is ready to help.

During this short stretch of time off, with no work or school, I shift my workouts to nap time. That one simple change leaves the mornings quiet and still, creating space for prayer and reflection.

For the last few years, I have taken these days between Christmas and returning to work to look back on the year behind me and look ahead to the new one. This year was no different.

Each morning I sat by the Christmas tree, surrounded by the remains of wrapping paper, half built toys, and scattered Legos with my notebook and pen in hand.

I have been a big fan of Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner for about three years now. I love the annual goal setting process and how it breaks the year into quarters with clear priorities.

As I flipped through my Annual Goals, I reflected on which ones I hit, which ones I missed, and why.

As I looked at the goals I failed to accomplish, one explanation kept surfacing.

My kids.

Kids as the Obstacle

Here were my 2025 goals:

• Spiritual: A daily habit of prayer, at least 30 minutes of mental prayer, tracked with an 85 percent annual success rate

• Personal: Weekly marriage strategic meetings and quarterly marriage off sites

• Work and financial: Reach a specific fundraising threshold for my ministry

• Financial: Pay off a loan entirely and hit a target emergency fund number

• Fitness: Run a sub 3:45 marathon

• Personal: Start and complete two large house projects, living room, office, chicken coop

• Work: Launch and grow the All In podcast

• Work: Publish 52 Call Him Abba Substack articles

• Fitness: Sub 1:20 HYROX time

• Spiritual: Launch a men’s Bible study at our parish and grow it to 10 consistent members

Ten goals.

I hit three.

Thirty percent.

If I were playing professional baseball, I would be hitting in the two hole with that success rate. But no one sets ten goals hoping to accomplish three. You aim for all ten.

As I drew seven X’s and only checked off three boxes, disappointment settled in.

What did I even accomplish this year?
Am I a better husband than I was a year ago?
A better dad?
A better son of God?
A better friend?
A better evangelist?
A better athlete?
More fit?

And then the thought came. The one I have entertained far more times than I care to admit.

What if I did not have kids?

Or had fewer of them.
Or if they were less needy.
Or if they slept through the night.
Or if they did not cost so much freaking money.

What if I had a few more years in my twenties before kids?

If I did not have kids, I would have gone ten for ten this year.

After a long internal shaming for even thinking those thoughts, I slowly reentered the reality of my life.

A Different Standard of Success

I looked back down at the page in my planner, and something finally clicked.

These goals could have belonged to any man.

Any guy with a YouTube algorithm like mine.
A moderate love of God.
And twenty chapters of a Dave Ramsey book under his belt.

They were good goals. Nothing sinful. Nothing broken. Some of them genuinely beautiful.

But they were not the goals of an Abba.

Notice who did not make the top ten.

Children did not.
My wife did not.

Yes, there were tangential goals. Marriage meetings. Financial stability for the family. Creating a home we would enjoy living in.

But nothing directly about investing in them. Building relationships with them. Loving them. Spending time together.

Those things are hard to track in a weekly accountability chart. Wins and losses are not clearly defined. Success and failure are not obvious.

So what is the answer? How does the next year look different?

I am not exactly sure yet.

But whatever the answer is, I want my wife and my kids to be part of it

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido

This article is none of those. At least not until the online course is finished. Kidding. Maybe. You will just have to wait and see.

Today’s article is 99% selfish. It is mostly for me to mentally process in words the last 6 months of physical training leading into competing in HYROX Dallas 2025 . But also a chance to process my personality and physiological bent, a concept that tends to confuse both my wife and I.

In April ‘25 I wrote a post here: How This Abba Competes about the value of competition in the life of a man. I touched on briefly my experience with physical fitness and where it all started.

Starting during COVID 2020, just a few months after becoming a father in Oct ‘19, I became absolutely 100% obsessed with training for and competing in endurance type sports.

Growing up I was a highly competitive athlete, playing high level travel baseball year-round for my whole upbringing. In high school my entire life was built around trying to receive a college scholarship in baseball. While a few opportunities popped up at the end of high school to play at smaller colleges, I ended up hanging up the cleats and therefore competitive athletics.

Fast forward back to 2020 and discovering endurance sports, I was hooked. Combine a crazy addictive personality, the identity crisis of becoming a dad, being conditioned to be ultra competitive and a world wide lockdown and you get a 23 yr old signing up for a half-marathon. (first half)

I ran my first half-marathon and loved it. Then trained and ran a full marathon- loved that too. Ran a couple more half marathons after that and then began training for my first trail ultra-marathon. During that training block I suffered a horrifying back injury from weightlifting that prevented me from exercising at all for 16 months. After 16 months of PT, Chiro, an allergic reaction to pain killers, a cross country move that further irritated my back injury and multiple tear-shed evenings in frustration I finally found an answer.

She was a Physical Therapist my dad referred me to, who had a background in weightlifting, sports and was currently a PT for the US Olympic Rowing team. She recommended that I do something I thought was totally crazy: lifting heavy weights. For nearly 12 months every other PT, Chiro or Doctor was recommending rest, and very low movement. She said the opposite. I started meeting her 2x a week and we would strength train. Slowly but surely as I started to strengthening the muscles in and around my back, the pain became more and manageable. I began to run again. Began to bike again. The first time I ran 3 miles pain free, I came home crying. This PT had given me the gift of my body back.

I jumped back in fitness full steam ahead. Trained for and raced a Ironman 70.3 triathlon in Louisville, KY in 2024. Then jumped into a marathon build and PR’ed my half marathon, and marathon times in the Spring ‘25. I had a buddy who had recently raced a couple HYROX races- What is HYROX in 2024, and in talking to him it peeked my interest.

During my Ironman, and marathon blocks I had felt weak and brittle. I was exercising 10-16 hours a week at some points, but couldn’t even do 5 pull ups at a time. On top of that the worst part of long distance endurance sports is that your physical body often times looks/ and feels just the same as a 19 year old high school kid who plays Halo and eats Taco Bell 4x a week= skinny fat (pictured below me in the middle of triathlon training=skinny fat).

Because you are spending so much time at lower end aerobic heart rate zones, it is difficult to maintain muscle, and nearly impossible to gain muscle mass. Combine that with the need to consume high level of carbs to maintain proper energy stores and glucose levels for those high volume training days and the person who can bike 60 miles and then run a half marathon off it doesn’t exactly look like it. Combine that with the fact that I could barely bench press 135lbs, felt injury prone and the high volume training seemed to negatively impact my immune health- it was time for something else.

The idea of HYROX peeked my interest because it seemingly prioritized aerobic fitness, which I had been building up for years, with strength training, which was something I felt like I was desperately in need of. So in mid-May ‘25 I began a 6 month training block heading into HYROX Dallas 2025.

The first two months I built up with weekly training splits being
-20 miles running a week (1 speed, 2 EZ, 1 longer)
-1 upper body strength/ 1 lower body strength
-1 HYROX specific= running w/ station work

On top of physical training, I also for the first time seriously dialed in my nutrition and took a deep dive into the world of tracking macros. I aimed for a 200 Caloric deficit per day, which after exercise panned out to anywhere from 2,200-2,600 Calories a day depending on the intensity/ type of workout. Within that I aimed for .8 gram protein per LB bodyweight, which for me is around 135g per lb. I lowered my alcohol consumption to 1x-2x a week.

Also started reading, researching and inhaling vast amounts of nutritional info via books and podcasts. These led into fascinations with topics as visceral fat, cortisol levels, sleep aptitude, contrast therapy and vitamin deficiencies.

Like I have said- when I get into something, I get really into it. (totally different physique from marathon/endurance training resulted-lost 15 lbs of fat, and gained 5lbs of muscle in the last 6 months due to nutrition and this style of exercise)

As we moved throughout the summer and into the fall, I ended up joining a hybrid training gym here in Denver, called Aion Training.

These folks are wild. Multiple HYROX Worlds qualifiers, 2 Elite 15 Athletes (professional athletes), and people crazy enough to wake up at 4:40am to go train their hearts out. I am definitely the only dude with 4 kids pulling up to the gym in the AM as well, a fact that both humbles and inspires me.

They prepared me well in the 2-3 months leading up to HYROX Dallas, and as I pulled up to the Dallas Convention Center, November 22nd, I was ready to go for it.

And went for it I did. Upon crossing the finish line, I looked up at the screen and showed a 1:16:34. My base goal for this race was sub 80mins which I hit and my stretch goal was 1:15. Missed that by a minute and a half.

In pulling up the stats afterwards- I was happy with my result. I was 77th percentile for my age group, meaning I performed better than 77% of 24-29 yr old men that have raced HYROX Open. My running was top 47%, my workouts top 23% and my RoxZone (transition time) was top 11%.

These splits honestly shocked me. With a background in endurance, I would have bet tons of money that my runs would be my strong suit in the race, but the stations were nearly 9 mins faster in total time than my 1k’s runs.

Areas for improvements
-Ski Erg- 4:48mins (top 89.2%)- woof, took this way too easy, trying not to burnout at the start of the race and ended up going far too easy here (me taking it too easy on the ski)

-Row Erg- 5:16mins (top 87.1%)- woof again. Was planning on using this as a recovery station, and took it way too easy here, also had a hard time getting feet in the straps which probably cost 10-15 seconds on top of slow pace
-Wall Balls- 6:02mins (top 32%)- good time here in comparison, but in training I had regularly been in the 4:30-5 min marks. Got 5-7 no reps for depth, and then got a no rep for height on rep #100, brutal. These absolutely sucked.
-Run pace- Averaged 4:59/k pace which was way off my 4:35/k goal pace. Not sure what happened here besides just having trouble knowing what pace I was at, given the lack of real time watch pace data

Strong Suits
-Burpee Broad Jumps- 2:52 mins (top 3%), only 17 men did Burpee Broad Jumps faster than me in Dallas. My slight build, short height, and aerobic fitness are my keys here
-Farmers Carry- 1:25mins (top 11%)- we train with super heavy KB at the gym, so that training paid off here
-Negative Split runs- I ran the last 4 1k’s much faster than the first 4K’s showing I still had gas and leg strength in the back half of the race. Wish I would have pushed more in the front half
-Rox Zone- sneakiest part of the race. This is the transition area between the workout station and the run track. Most people walk this portion and get water, but I ran it and moved quickly putting up a 4:36mins good for top 11%.

Takeaway’s= push from the get go. Be smart and pace myself but because of the negative splits I showed myself that I can continue to push the runs deeper in the race. Get run splits consistently into the 4:35/k range while not burning out for the stations.

Now we are 9 weeks out from giving it another go at HYROX Phoenix Jan 29th, 2026 where I am setting a stretch goal of sub 70 mins and a base goal of sub 75 mins.

In the midst of this- I have been asking myself over and over again, what is the point of all of this? Is there a purpose to this? And I am stepping away from my family too much to just run around a circle shirtless with a bunch of other shirtless Abba’s while people take pictures of us?

I do not know the answer here- but we will dive in next week.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido

DIY.

Do it yourself.

I have talked on here on Call Him Abba in the past about my lack of handy-man skills, although to update my readers I did finally finish the chicken coop after a purgatorial 6 week journey of building. I now have 6 chickens happily living and pooping an ungodly amount in their newly barely functional but certainly not fashionable home.

The idea of DIY has absolutely exploded in recent years. Home Depot has built an entire home-repair empire on the concept (of which I have spent so much money on.) Thousands of YouTube videos are released every year under the topic as cash strapped Dad’s everywhere get inspiration on how to please their wife and save $1000 in the process.

I am a big budgeting guy. Over the last 10 years or so I have tried out a variety of different apps but have settled in on the Michael Jordan of budgeting software YNAB. I’m such a big YNAB fan that I have, without any sponsorship, affiliate links, or kick back, successfully convinced upwards of 50 families and various young men to get on board.

I was telling one friend about it and he showed me an intense Excel document that he has built by himself to track his families expenses. Complete with pivot tables, formula built graphs, tables and charts it looked like something from a Masters level finance course. Honestly I was quite impressed.

In an age of automation, corporate chains, AI, experts on everything men across the country are being awoken to the value of DIY.

Instead of hiring out someone to do the job, they are seeing the value of learning the skill, applying the skill and executing upon the newly gained knowledge they recently acquired.

I am all for this.

Except for when it comes to your Masculinity.

DIY your kitchen remodel. DIY your workout plan. DIY your burger recipe. DIY your kid’s bunk-beds.

But please don’t DIY your understanding of what being a man is about.

DIT (Do it together) your manhood

Too many men try to create a understanding of masculinity in a void. Try to redefine what the purpose is themselves. Find a definition of it that is new and reimagined. Read a book about it. Watch a movie about it. Listen to a podcast about. But a novel on George Washington cannot teach you masculinity. A podcast about grilling meat and fixing your fridge can’t teach you masculinity.

Only masculinity can bestow masculinity. Time in person, listening, watching, being a student of masculinity from other men allows for this type of apprenticeship in manhood. This is THE WAY to truly DIT- do it together.

I want to recommend here very plainly 3 ways that I am seeking to DIT manhood and not DIY it.

1. Mentorship

I am all in on male mentorship. Have been for a few years now. I am firmly convicted that I need a man older than me, wiser than me, more successful than me, more humble than me that is apart of my life regularly. This person can provide consistent feedback, regular touch points and a sense of accountability to my decision making.

Currently I am meeting with a mentor on a 1x month cadence. We share breakfast together at First Watch (can’t go wrong there) and talk for 1-2 hours about a variety of concepts. He is far more successful and experienced in his career than me, has college age kids, been married for 2x-3x more than me, and just has a vast amount of lived experience in his Abba-hood. We touch on professional advice/ feedback, the balance of family and career, the impact of being a present day at home and the various stages of marriage and life we find ourselves in. I look forward to them very much as they provide me a space to be received in my thoughts but also to have someone who is firmly in my corner.

2. Multi-generational friendships

My wife and I joke that we feel often like we don’t spend time with anyone our own age. Lots of her very close mom friends are 10 years older than her with 3-4 more children than we have. She spend more time with women in their late 30’s than women in their late 20’s (our age bracket).

I feel the same way often times in my life/ friendships. I frequently find myself in rooms where I am the youngest person in them. Last year I took my daughter to her first daddy/ daughter dance at her school. Since I was 22 when I became a dad and she is my oldest, I found myself socializing with men who legitimately a few years younger than my own dad. Made me feel really good about my hair density though.

At times it feels a bit odd -as I show up wearing a backwards floater hat and football jersey to my daughter’s dance recital and some mom in there is wondering whose older sibling showed on his college spring break. But the wisdom and experience that my family and I have gained from regularly being the youngest couple in the room is truly edifying. These families have taught us how to parent, how to have joy in the midst of suffering and how to be generous to each other and to your community.

The other benefit is that we have people a couple steps ahead to ask questions to about parenting. This could be as simple as practical tips such as when a good friend shared with us to try putting magnesium lotion on our 4 year old’s to help him sleep better. We find ourselves frequently calling or asking them about discipline, television usage, faith formation, school choices and many many more advice on day to day parenting.

3. Regular non-kid parent fellowship

Spend time regularly with fellow parents sans kids. Don’t get me wrong fellowship with other families with kids is outstanding. The kids play together, the parents get time together but it is always interrupted time. You find yourself in a powerful conversation until a kid bangs their head playing, throws a plate of food off the table or locks the bathroom door shut after using it (recently happened to us while hosting some friends over).

However, the fellowship shared with parents sans kids is critical. Uninterrupted time to debrief, connect and share the sufferings and graces of parenting regularly allows for a space of real renewal in the day to day of craziness. Double dates with other couples is a favorite of ours to allow for this.

In conclusion find a mentor, spend time with people older and wiser than you, and encourage fellowship with other parents, especially dads without kids present allows for a world in which you are not discovering masculinity for yourself but learning it from other men face to face.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido

Did you see your dad spending time with other dads when you were growing up?

To be clear, this doesn’t mean seeing your dad talk to another dad at your football game. Not your dad talking to your mom’s friend’s husband. Not your dad chatting about work with a co-worker or colleague. Not your dad making small talk about interest rates with another dad after church.

I’m talking about spending regular time with other men in an environment where kids are not involved, wives are not involved, and work is not involved.

This dynamic has always fascinated me: the reality that married men—especially married men with kids—have very few close friends, if any. The data backs this up in a major way.

In 2021, the Survey Center on American Life produced research on this exact topic. In an article entitled “Men’s Social Circles Are Shrinking” they stated, “Thirty years ago (1991), a majority of men (55 percent) reported having at least six close friends.” In 2021, “that number has been cut in half. Slightly more than one in four (27 percent) men have six or more close friends today.” Even more disappointing: “Fifteen percent of men have no close friendships at all, a fivefold increase since 1990.” 1

Why Abba’s do not spend time with other Abba’s

It leads to a fascinating question to ponder: why is this the case?

Here are a few factors I think are at play:

• Less relational need

• Time crunch

• Sacrifice required from the spouse to give the husband the opportunity

• The “I’m good” / “Lone Ranger” mentality

• Poor experiences from male friendships in the past

As I think critically about each of these, it brings some clarity to the statistics we saw above. Add in additional factors like distractions from relationships through video games, sports, online gambling, and much more. While the reality of fatherly loneliness is sad in principle, it is not surprising in reality.

In an effort to help men think creatively about creating spaces, time, and opportunities for these desperately needed connections, I want to share how I’m pursuing this Abba-connection in my own life.

Over the last 3–4 years, I have personally encountered the deep need I have for these kinds of relationships. After experiencing incredible Abba-based friendships, I cannot imagine life without them.

Currently, this looks like a few different touch points per week.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love training for endurance sports. I have completed training blocks for marathons, half-marathons, long-distance triathlons, and even an ultra-marathon. However, when I looked back at those times, I realized I did nearly 95% of the training by myself.

While certainly important for discipline and mental fortitude, the experiences felt relatively empty.

In May, I finished my marathon training block and was thinking about what event to train for next. I had a buddy who had just completed a Hyrox Fitness Race in Hamburg, Germany, and I had trained with him a few times. We talked about how cool it would be to get a group of dads together to train for this.

If you aren’t familiar with Hyrox racing, watch this → What is Hyrox?

We have now recruited over 20 people (most of them dads) to register, train, and compete in Hyrox Dallas on November 21–23 from all across the country.

In the training leading up to this, I have done 50–70% of my workouts with a fellow Abba. It has been a great joy. We get to suffer physically together, hold each other accountable, show up consistently, and many times end up having incredible conversations in the midst of exercising.

But it didn’t stop there. I enjoyed the group fitness aspect so much that I recently joined a Hyrox gym where 25–30 people show up at 5:15 a.m. Monday through Friday to grow and train together.

The beauty of this is that it hasn’t added anything extra to my schedule—I’m just doing the same activity but now in a community of like-minded men.

Next up is my dad’s group. Every other Tuesday night, I gather with five other Abba’s to discuss fatherhood, marriage, and growth in professional, physical, spiritual, and apostolic areas of life.

These men are some of the most important people in my life. We share openly, honestly, and vulnerably about the gaps in our lives as dads and husbands.

From that group, we also prioritize one-on-one time with each other—often early morning coffee or a quick beer after work. This allows for both group connection and individual friendships.

Finally, a fellow dad and I lead a men’s Bible study for dads at our church every other Monday night. Right now, we’re leading content on how men can step up as spiritual leaders in their families. This group is less about me receiving and more about creating a space for other men to be welcomed and accompanied in their journey as Abba’s and as sons of the Abba.

I share this not from a place of “follow me” but simply to show my own desperate need for these relationships in my life. I would not be able to withstand the daily grind of life as a husband, father, and employee without them.

I’m not laying out the framework for Abba-ships here—only a possible path forward that you can adapt and fill in with the details of your own life.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido