What kind of relationship do you have with your kids?  As cops, we are pulled in so many different directions and this can really take its toll on our family relationships if we aren't being proactive.

Check out the highlights from this episode:

Gerritt's first narcotics deal.(01:19)

• Life has a way of throwing you curveballs, which is what happened when Gerritt and Melissa found out she was pregnant with her first child. (01:59)
• Police work forces you to become a different person (3:55)
• How this career can affect your relationships.  (4:09)
• Cops often become intolerant of their kids and Gerritt found himself becoming the kind of guy that he became good at arresting.  He didn't want to be that person. (5:45)
• His kids became afraid of him and would run and hide from him when he got home from work. (6:30)
• Which kind of person are you being around your kids? (6:50)
• When you get home, what is your family's initial interaction with you? (7:32)
• Ask your family if you have changed...if you are a different person. (8:20)
• Which version of you are you when you come home to interact with your family? (8:45)
• If you aren't the version you want to be right now that's OK.  (9:37)
• Find ways to connect with your kids where they are, even if it's not necessarily something you enjoy doing. (9:50)
• Invest in the relationship with your kids every day. (11:41)'
• Date your kids- spend time with them doing things they enjoy. (12:31)
• Spend time together as a family outside your house (13:15)
• Time is the best way to invest in your family relationships. (13:48)

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About The Show

From the brink of divorce, health problems, and near suicide to having the life of his dreams.

Meet Gerritt Bake, a retired SWAT officer who has spent the last 4 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to uncover the formula that brings a voice to Heroes everywhere and guides them on how to turn their frustrated and disconnected lives around and become a Hero in their own right.

He shares everything he learned about being a police officer and about balancing the demands of work, home life, and the community. This show is for first responders who want to unlock the path to master the fundamentals to win at work, at home, and in life.

He reveals the most significant "a-ha moments" in his journey of rebuilding his personal life and professional career, including tough lessons learned and beating the odds to create the life of his dreams. He interviews some of the most successful cops, celebrities, and thought leaders in the first responder space who practice everything we preach.

Welcome to Hero Nation. Hit subscribe, share with your first responder friends, and let's build better Heroes together.

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0:00
Welcome to winthe daily war, the podcast built for heroes by heroes that smashes your fears, false beliefs and skewed sense of reality. Each week, we dive deep into real life examples and lessons learned from those who weren't the frontline, their struggles, and what they were able to put into place to rebuild their lives. well armed with the tools, tactics and techniques to get the results that you're after.

0:21
All right. All right, my brothers and sisters, welcome back to the only show that is focused on helping you master the fundamentals to win at work at home. And in life. If it sounds like I'm learning to talk again, well, I am. I had braces. And then after I got my braces off a couple years ago, I got permanent retainers put in. Well, my permanent retainer on top fell off a few weeks ago, and I've been waiting to get into the orthodontist to get it replaced, got to replace yesterday. And of course, it's not the same one that was there before. So now my tongue is learning how to use it talk again. So I sound a little a little off, we'll call it. But what we're learning we're pushing through this. But that's not what today's topic is about.

1:05
Today's topic is about kids, kids, kids, kids. Now some of you have kids, some of you don't, some of you still act like kids, you know who I'm talking about. But ultimately, kids right? And, and this relationship that we have with children. I want to share a story or a couple stories from my life, when I was married, newly married, if you will, my wife and I decided that we were going to wait until we graduated from college to have kids, we wanted to have that good career that you know, the house and the two cars, if you will have our life kind of set up before we welcomed children into our household.

1:42
Well, life, of course, has a different way of of doing things. And it just says, Hey, this is your path and your journey. And this is when it's gonna happen. And so the way we found out that my wife was pregnant was she wasn't feeling well. And so we went to the doctor and and you know, we're still newlyweds with her. And we're sitting in the room and and the doctor comes in after they done a couple tests, he comes in and you know, he's got this the clipboard, right? And so he's writing on the clipboard. I don't know what he's writing. He's writing on the clipboard, and He kind of looks up and he's like, well, you want the good news or the bad news? And we're like, well, I guess the good news. And he's like, well, you're not sick. And we're like, Okay, so what's the bad news then? And without even looking up, he's like, you know, you're pregnant. And he turns around, he walks out of the room are both like, wow, totally caught off guard totally surprised. I was still in college. I think she just graduated. I had no clue what I was doing with my life. No, I wasn't even a police officer yet. Like I was still trying to figure out from down. And so here, I was going to be a dad, right? And so the next nine months were quite humorous. Because I was scrambling to try and grow up, right, try and be a father all of a sudden, a husband and a father, and how should I act? And what should I do? And I had no clue what I was doing. And sometimes I still don't, and we've been married 21 years, our oldest is 19, our daughter's 18. And my youngest is 15. Yep, yep, I'm on that side of things.

3:14
But I remember when my oldest son was first born, and you know, the excitement of the delivery room and the crying baby and cleaning them off and holding him in my arms for the first time. And just the emotion and the exhaustion and all this stuff that goes through that. And it was a couple of weeks in that. I started to ask myself a question. I'm like, What am I supposed to do? Like, I'm a dad now. And I got this baby. But like, the baby doesn't want to interact with me, it wants to like eat sleep and poop. Like, that's all it wants to do. So what am I supposed to do? Right? And, and I struggled like trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. And then of course, my son started to finally get older and interact a little more and smile and look at me. And then, you know, you get to the crawling phases, and then the walking phase and, and you know, at that point, I'd become a police officer. And so I was, you know, super excited about that. Being being a father right in interacting with my kids.

4:12
And what I didn't know, though at the time was how the career was affecting my relationship with at that point, my oldest son and eventually my daughter and my other son. I didn't understand it, right? Because I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it, that I was changing. The Career does that to you, right? It forces you to become a different person. Now, most of the things that you learn and do are in a good way, right? You become more aware of your surroundings, you become more alert. But some of them are bad things which is your tolerance for things drops.

4:51
Now, what do I mean by that? after I became a police officer, I've graduated the academy hit the streets and whatnot. I went from being The energetic happy smiling, always wanted to have a good time guy to the solid angry, like, don't bother me, I'm going to sit with my arms crossed in the corner of the room guy. And that is not a good position to be in. That is not what you want a father to be like, right. And so I would want to spend time with my kids, right because inside I knew that I was connected to this child and, and I wanted to do things with them. And I wanted to have a good time. But at the same time, I would flip the switch and become this like angry, bossy. No one wants to be around him make his kids cry person.

5:41
Like I remember, we had a little garden in our backyard, we had an orange tree. And underneath, we planted some stuff we had, you know, carrots, and broccoli and celery and like all these different things, and, and I remember, my son wanted to come help. And he was I don't know, he couldn't have been more than like three or four at the time. And you know, I was, you know, pulling up the carrots and dusting them off and putting them in a pile. And he just just been a kid just like pulling them off. And then just like walking off with them. And I kept telling him bring it back, bring it back, coming back. And finally, like I snapped at him, right? I got really mad at him and started yelling at him and he started crying. And then my wife comes out why is it crying I'm like, cuz he's not listening to me. And like, I'd become the thing that I never wanted to become, I become the thing that I become really good at arresting. You think about it. Right. But I still didn't see it. And I didn't understand it. And it got to the point when I would call it the lowest of lows when my kids my two oldest because the youngest one was still too young. But my two oldest when I would show up at home and they were still awake. After shift, they would usually run and hide. They would run and hide.Why? Because they didn't know which version of dad was going to show up the happy dad who wanted to play with them at any dinner with them and cook with them. Because we have always loved to cook together. Or the dad that was an angry asshole who was looking for a reason to snap to yell. And the house would get quiet. When I walked in the door. No one would say a word they would hide and they would wait. Wait to see who showed up. And if if it was angry asshole, dad, they wouldn't come out of the rooms. My wife would have to like call them and force them out of their rooms for for dinner, or to sit down next to me. And they didn't want to. And I still didn't see this right. And I would still I would complain to her. I'm like what's wrong with the kids? See, because I couldn't see what was happening in my own life. I couldn't see who it was that I'd become.

7:48
So I want you to think about your life right now. When you get home, what happens? When you get home? What's your initial interaction with your wife? What's your initial reaction or interaction with your kids? If you're not married, when you see your parents? Have you changed? If you're not sure, if you change, I challenge you to ask them, Hey, am I my a different person? Before you do, you just might want to be ready to accept the answers that come your way. Because you're going to be shocked. Now, there's a portion of you and I get it, who've always been good husbands and fathers and you'll continue to be and God bless you. Thank you. Thank you for being able to keep that equilibrium as they say that level head. Thank you. You're an example for all of us. For the majority of you, you're like me. Here your little Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And again, it's not a bad thing, right? But you have to understand it, to be able to control it right? I only want my dark side to come out. When I'm dealing with bad guys. That's it. Everything else, I want to be happy. I want to be calm. I want to be relaxed. I want to be engaged. Because ultimately, that's the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing.

9:16
So ask yourself which version Are you which version Are you if you work late swings or grades when you wake up in the morning and your kids are jumping on your bed? Or they're screaming out in the hallway? Or they're playing loud video games? Like which version? Are you? Are you the one that wants to go join them? Or you're the one to tell them to shut up so you can get more sleep? which version are you? And if you're not the version that you want to be right now that's okay. That's okay. Because I'm here to tell you you can be right. So what do you need to change about you in order to become that version that you want to become in order to be able to interact with the kids the way you want to interact with them, to have them want to do things with you? Right tell you that before my son graduated from high school his senior year, we'd been working our relationship for a while. And it took me a long time, a long time to get to a point where he would even talk to me. Because I never wanted to hear what he had to say. Because in my mind all I ever saw it as was excuses, right? But we worked and we worked, and I'll share some of those things here in a minute, we worked and he worked through it to where my senior year I was like, Hey, I would like to do something with you, just you and I, to senior year, you pick it some type of activity. Let's work towards it, and we'll do it together. You'll be picked, pick Spartan races. So there's three different lengths of Spartan Race one dislike three to four ones is seven to eight and one dislike 13 to 14, three different lengths. And we train for them together. And we did we were able to do these races together, but we did them because we had built the relationship to be able to do them together. Right?

10:52
So my daughter, what does she enjoy doing with me? Well, not painting nails, don't ask me why my daughter just does not like to paint nails. But she's now a senior, she's 18 years old. We'd literally go get ice cream, and we go thrift store shopping. Sounds like a real manly thing to do, doesn't it? No, it's not. But that's besides the point, right? So I had to unlock like, what is it that my daughter wants? And how do I do that with her? What is my youngest one yesterday, we're sitting on the couch playing video games. I swore off video games, because I went through that phase where I'd get home from work, and I play video games. But I swore off video games, but I realized that he really enjoys video games. Okay, so we play video games together. And I suck at it. I'm like, that's not the way a gun shoots in real life. But whatever it is what it is, it's a game, right? But we have time together where we laugh, and we joke.

11:41
So here's here's some some tips, if you will some tricks, number one. Number one, you have to invest every single day, every single day, invest in your kids. Now what does that look like? Well, it could be as simple as like writing them a note or a or a picture if they're super small, or sending them a text message. If they're older, and they have a phone or a meme. If they're into memes. My kids are into memes, or a video, right? The point is you're connecting with them every single day in some way, shape or form. Not in the traditional like you remember, everybody would sit around the dinner table, it was quiet and dad would ask all the kids. So how was your day at school today? Like, okay, fine, you can do that. But like you need to connect on a deeper level. And you only connect on a deeper level starting to understand the things that they like, and how do you do that you start to communicate that with them more often. Number to date your kids every single week that your kids. And what I mean by date, your kids will spend time with them doing something. Now if you got 10 kids, I'm sorry, this can be really hard. But if you got two or three or four kids spend 1520 minutes, 30 minutes with each of them alone every single week. Again, what is that going to do? It's going to allow you to connect at a deeper level, it's going to allow you to start to understand them. Right? My daughter loves hashbrowns for example. How did I learned about hashbrowns? Well, it was us talking and spending time together and cooking and baking. So occasionally I'll go to the store, buy hashbrowns if I'm too lazy, or I'll buy some potatoes, you know, hash them all out and get them ready, she wakes up in the morning we have hashbrowns like it's this little thing that seems insignificant, but it means so much because she knows that I'm doing it for her. The third piece is you have to spend time together as a family outside of your house. Outside of work in a completely different environment, right. So this means go for hikes, go for walks, go to the mini golf, go go do bumper cars, like get out of the house and start to experience life together outside of your work and outside of the environment that they spend time in. Right? Because ultimately, how do you build a better relationship is you invest and you invest with time. So all three of these things are not the end all be all there's other things out there. By the way, we could spend a lot of time talking about them. But ultimately, what I want you to remember is by you investing time, energy and effort in those kids, you're going to build the relationship that you want, and get the returns that you want. Don't let your relationship end up like mine. don't end up when you open up the house or the door or the garage that the kids go school, go run and hide and it's eerily quiet as you walk in. You want daddy daddy daddy, and they come running, to hug you and to hold on to you. That's what you want. So if that's what you want, you already know what you got to do. You got to take the steps that are going to take you there. All right. That's all I got for you today. Listen, if you're ready to start down this path of your own hero's journey, creating the life that you ultimately want. You guys know what to do go to win the daily war calm and download your free hero's journey. Alright, that's all I got for you. You guys know what time it is. It's time to get after it three to one. Off you go.

14:56
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai