The Parking Lot Moment That Changed Everything I Thought I Knew About Raising Kids.
We had just come off the mountain after a long day of skiing. Legs smoked. Everyone ready to get home. And my youngest, Tyler, spotted it in the parking lot.
A half-frozen puddle of mud and slush so gnarly it looked like it had its own ecosystem.
His face lit up. He started running straight for it with the delight of a dog chasing a tennis ball.
My default parent mode kicked in immediately. I opened my mouth to shut it down. Don’t even think about it T-Man.
And then I stopped myself.
Because in that split second I realized something. By stopping him I wasn’t protecting him. I wasn’t helping him. I wasn’t looking out for him at all. I was projecting my own adult baggage onto a six year old who just wanted to jump in a puddle. The mess. The wet clothes. The extra laundry. Him looking ridiculous.
So I took a breath. Smiled. And said, “Get after it, dude.”
He launched in full send mode. Muddy ice slush everywhere. Laughing like the little maniac he still is today.
And that is when it hit me. These are the kids I want to raise. Kids who jump into life, not around it.
That moment in a ski resort parking lot became the book I had been living for twenty years without knowing it.
Here is the truth I want every parent reading this to hear.
I deployed to Afghanistan eleven days after September 11th. Gretchen was seven months pregnant with our first son Jackson and everything felt uncertain in ways I cannot fully describe.
I came home to a baby who had been alive for months without me. I became the head instructor of the Navy SEAL sniper course at 28. I lost my first business. Lost my savings.
My marriage ended in divorce. We moved cities, moved schools, lost friendships, navigated drugs, alcohol, social media, and all the other landmines that modern parenting drops in your path without warning.
Not sure about you, but none of my kids came with an owner’s manual.
Like most parents, I just started winging it. But I had one unfair advantage. My SEAL sniper training had given me a mental management system that I started applying to parenting.
Visualization. Positive self-talk. Emotional regulation. Self-image management.
The same four principles that keep a sniper functional under life or death pressure turned out to be the most powerful parenting tools I had ever encountered.
People started noticing. Friends, colleagues, people I met at conferences after keynotes, they would spend time with my kids and then pull me aside and ask what I was doing differently. When I told them my parenting approach was rooted in SEAL sniper mental management training, they wanted to know everything.
So I finally wrote the book…sometimes your next project just finds you.
Puddle Jumpers is not a perfect parenting book written by a perfect parent. I am a divorced dad who made more mistakes than I can count and paid close attention to what actually worked.
Every lesson in this book was learned the hard way, self-taught, parent-tested, and refined through raising three very different kids with my co-parent and ex-wife Gretchen, who was brave enough to write the foreword.
There is no greater mission as a parent than raising a child who knows who they are and has the tools to thrive and become the captain of their own life.
I wrote this book because every parent deserves to feel that. Not just the lucky ones. Not just the ones who had great role models or stable circumstances or a village around them.
Every single parent who is out there doing their best behind closed doors in the quiet moments that nobody else sees.
This book is for you.
From one parent to another. I am giving you everything I learned in the arena.
Because while we cannot cover everything, we can sure as hell focus on what matters most.
Puddle Jumpers is finally here!
Muchas Gracias for grabbing a copy for yourself or someone who needs it. It’s also a great Father’s Day gift—one that dad will actually enjoy! ;)
Brandon
