Protecting children from online hazards is an essential part of parenting in the digital age. Dr. Lisa Strohman, a psychologist specializing in the mental health impacts of technology, breaks down the issues surrounding online pornography, video game addiction, and cyberbullying. She shares how parents can navigate the internet minefield, communicate about these topics with their children, and recognize signs that their children are struggling. Dr. Strohman is also the founder of Digital Citizen...
Jan 18, 2024•1 hr 13 min
Last spring, former Texas Children’s Hospital surgeon and current whistleblower Dr. Eithan Haim exposed, in his words, that the hospital was lying to the public about the existence of their transgender program. Despite promises to cease such procedures, the hospital continued practicing transgender medicine on kids as young as 11. Texas legislators responded to the information revealed by Haim with the bi-partisan Senate Bill 14, outlawing transgender medical interventions on minors statewide. T...
Jan 13, 2024•2 hr 49 min
If the streaming charts are true, then there’s a good chance you’ve watched the collapse of America in Netflix’s new film Leave the World Behind . The film is many things, including pretty good, but most notably, it’s a conspiracy theory built on racial division, brought to you by former President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama. On one level, this is a classic disaster movie. There’re some great set pieces, it’s stylish and cinematic, and the whole thing feels pretty believable, but at...
Jan 05, 2024•38 min
Kristi Kendall, an accomplished television producer and filmmaker, and Ben Klutsey, Director of the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, joined the show to discuss their new documentary film, Undivide Us. The film brings together people from diverse backgrounds to discuss highly contentious topics like gun control, abortion, and immigration, and dives into the pressing concerns of America's current political culture, exploring the risks o...
Dec 29, 2023•2 hr 52 min
Osama Bin Laden’s letter to America goes viral on TikTok. Free speech loses even more friends. Harvard rallies around the race card. We’ve watched a series of truly outrageous events unfold. All of them are deeply connected and a warning for the trajectory of our society. Too many of our kids have embraced the enemies of civilization, too many of our educational and cultural institutions are to blame, and at the heart of all of it is an assault on our nation’s founding principles: freedom of exp...
Dec 22, 2023•26 min
Jaleel White, widely recognized for his iconic role as Steve Urkel in "Family Matters," has a career that spans far beyond this memorable character. Starting in the industry as a child actor, he featured in dozens of national commercials and various classic TV shows, including "Mr. Belvedere" and "The Jeffersons." Beyond the screen, Jaleel is deeply committed to his role as a single father. He embraces the challenges and rewards of parenting with a hands-on and thou...
Dec 14, 2023•1 hr 21 min
Alan Graham has been on the frontlines tackling homelessness for 25 years. As the CEO and founder of Mobile Loaves & Fishes, a social outreach ministry, Alan has been instrumental in developing innovative solutions, building genuine relationships with the homeless community, and providing sustainable, permanent support for men and women coming out of chronic homelessness. Alan’s journey began in 1998 when he, along with four friends, started delivering meals to homeless men and women from th...
Dec 01, 2023•2 hr 2 min
Our culture is suffering from a potentially fatal allergy. Identity politics has become a kind of autoimmune disease that threatens to kill the host. We've become hypersensitive to our superficial identities just as our kids have become hypersensitive to most of the components of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We're going to need more than an emergency epipen if we want to stop this disease and get back on track to stability and health as a society. And no, we can't just “get al...
Nov 22, 2023•19 min
The barbarians are at the gates, and we created them. The kids who’ve terrorized speakers on college campuses and HR departments in Fortune 100 companies. The kids who scream and cry and throw temper tantrums on TikTok over trivial encounters with ideas they dislike. The kids who believe speech is violence AND silence is violence. The kids who took to the streets and burned our cities after the death of one man, yet now come out in explicit support of the barbaric murder of more than 1400 innoce...
Nov 22, 2023•31 min
Connor Boyack, best known as the creator of the "Tuttle Twins" books and streaming series, has mastered the art of blending libertarian principles with engaging storytelling to reach children effectively, while also teaching their parents a lesson or two. His most recent addition to the series, "The Tuttle Twins Guide To True Conspiracies," delves into 20 historical events initially considered to be unhinged conspiracy theories but later proven factual. Connor is also the Pre...
Nov 17, 2023•3 hr 33 min
Greg Lukianoff, a First Amendment lawyer and President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), dives headfirst into the pressing issues of free speech and the impact of cancel culture in academia. Lukianoff discusses the troubling trends at prestigious universities, where ideological bias butts up against claims of political neutrality, especially highlighted during recent intense protests over the Israel-Hamas conflict. He presents a compelling, data-backed narrative from...
Nov 10, 2023•2 hr 58 min
Liberal arts education once cultivated well-rounded, critically thinking individuals who would become our future innovators and leaders. However, in recent years, intellectual diversity, curiosity, and discourse have departed the halls of our most elite universities. Pano Kanelos, the founding president of UATX, believes that ideological capture and the overall homogenization of higher education are to blame. UATX, the University of Austin, has emerged as a reason for hope amidst negative trends...
Nov 02, 2023•2 hr 1 min
Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, the iconic face of Houston’s Gallery Furniture, has crafted a business empire that’s as much about community as it is about comfy mattresses. Mack recounted his journey into the furniture business, from first discovering his sense of motivation to persuading his future wife to move to Houston and risk it all on a furniture store. More recently, he’s made waves by placing staggering sports bets, including a record-breaking $75 million on the Houston Astros...
Oct 19, 2023•1 hr 9 min
Working with family can be a blend of laughter, love, and at times, a test of patience. It's a unique dance between the personal and professional, where shared histories create a tapestry rich with memories and understanding. In our conversation, Danny and Lucy DeVito highlighted the grounded, playful nature of their father-daughter duo amidst the Hollywood whirlwind and how they’ve successfully navigated personal and professional evolution together. Danny, with a storied career marked by ic...
Oct 05, 2023•1 hr 7 min
Jay Glazer has broken some of the biggest stories in NFL history, yet behind the scenes, he faces a different battle. In his book Unbreakable , Jay courageously shares his struggle against what he calls ‘the gray’. It's a raw and inspiring account of his life-long battle with anxiety and depression and his quest to help others struggling with the same issues. No matter how hard it can be, it's crucial that we open up about our personal struggles with those who care about us. More often t...
Sep 21, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Matt Risinger is a premium home builder in Austin, Texas and host of The Build Show on YouTube. With over two decades of experience, he has established himself as a leading authority in the field. Not long after setting up his own building company, Matt found himself buried in debt during the 2008 financial crisis. He has since become a passionate advocate for energy-efficient and sustainable building methods on a mission to build homes that stand the test of time. In our conversation, we talk a...
Sep 07, 2023•1 hr 26 min
Adam Curry first became a household name as an MTV VJ, but that was only the start of his nearly four-decade crusade to revolutionize media. Since childhood, he has been obsessed with using cutting-edge technology to improve the ways that humans communicate ideas, from building MTV’s first website to bringing Bitcoin micropayment to podcasting. Adam’s career has always been about pushing boundaries, in more ways than one. He’s known for exploring some of the wildest conspiracy theories on his po...
Aug 24, 2023•2 hr 28 min
You probably recognize Craig Melvin as a seasoned journalist and the co-host of The Today Show on NBC, but what you might not know is that he had to navigate addiction and generational fatherlessness in his own family to get there. Craig documents this tumultuous journey in his book Pops , including how he learned to become a better father himself in the process. Now he uses his TV platform to celebrate fatherhood with his Dads Got This! series. As parents we all want to be the best version of o...
Aug 10, 2023•57 min
Life throws us curveballs from time to time. Sometimes we take a swing and hit it out of the park, but even a swing and a miss can teach us important, humbling lessons. Few know this better than former MLB pitcher Jake Arrieta. Jake’s scouting sheet looks like a storybook career: Olympic medalist, Cy Young Award winner, National League All-Star. He even led the 2016 Chicago Cubs to their first World Series in 108 years. However, Jake’s success was not a guarantee. Behind those accolades lies a s...
Jul 27, 2023•2 hr 30 min
Business is fundamentally about creating value by solving a problem. Anybody with a great idea, regardless of their circumstances, has the potential to turn that idea into success with hard work and determination. Unfortunately, our school system clearly hasn’t prepared our kids, or us, to manage our money. Today’s guest, Daymond John, is best known as ‘The People’s Shark’ on ABC’s Shark Tank , but now he’s tackling financial education head-on with his children’s book, Little Daymond Learns to E...
Jul 13, 2023•46 min
The United States of America is arguably the first nation in human history to be created consciously on the basis of Enlightenment ideals. Those ideals were captured with power and poetry in the Declaration of Independence and have animated millions of people to immigrate to this country seeking a better life. You’ll find no greater champions of American ideals than first generation immigrants. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the rest of us. According to recent polling by the Wall Str...
Jun 29, 2023•1 hr 13 min
Good companies recognize people with passion and support their growth. As you pursue your career, it’s important learn as much as you can from mentors who are invested in your success. Today’s guest, Niels Schuurmans, is one of those great mentors. John met Niels over twenty years ago through a mentorship program at MTV. He later became John’s boss at both Nickelodeon and Spike TV, and during that time, Niels taught him the wisdom of humbly going back to the drawing board when a project isn’t go...
Jun 15, 2023•2 hr 49 min
In a world filled with adversity, there are those who refuse to succumb to the role of victim, instead choosing to rise above their circumstances and create their own destiny. Today’s guest, Akbar Gbajabiamila, has become a household name as the host of popular TV shows like American Ninja Warrior, The Talk , and his upcoming reality show, Fight to Survive. With his engaging personality and magnetic charisma, he ignites the spirits of contestants to conquer seemingly impossible obstacles. As a f...
Jun 08, 2023•2 hr 33 min
In disruptive times like these, it can be useful to expand your mind with radical new ideas, especially when they challenge your own assumptions. We need to remember that discomfort can be the first step in genuine learning, but only if we’re open to it. Today’s guest, Malcolm Collins, is a neuroscientist, serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and one of Amazon's best selling non-fiction writers. He and his wife Simone are reimagining education and much more through their work at the Coll...
May 18, 2023•2 hr 53 min
Stephen Kent has some wisdom to share. He’s an author, a PR Jedi, and a dad to his own young Padawan. His book, How the Force Can Fix the World, analyzes the virtues of Star Wars and explains how to apply these learnings to the modern world. Stephen has figured out how to use one of the most iconic and influential American stories as a common language to teach moral lessons to children. We worked with Stephen to create a great viewing guide so that you and your young Padawan can put his work int...
May 11, 2023•10 min
There are basically three ways to learn how to be a good person. We learn by doing and making mistakes, we learn by observing what other people do, and we learn from the stories in our culture. Popular stories play an outsized role in our understanding of virtue and morality, and few stories can match the awesome power of Star Wars . Today’s guest, Stephen Kent, has figured out how to use one of the most iconic and influential American stories as a common language to teach moral lessons to child...
May 04, 2023•1 hr 5 min
The physical world isn’t as scary as we’re led to believe, but our kids have a whole new digital world to contend with. We are currently raising the first generations of “digital natives” - kids born into a world already connected by the internet. Keeping our kids mentally healthy in an increasingly digital world is a new and confusing frontier for parents. Today’s guest, Dr. Lisa Strohman, is a licensed psychologist and the founder of Digital Citizen Academy, an organization addressing the issu...
Apr 20, 2023•1 hr 13 min
Why are fathers and father-figures so important in film? What can we learn about ourselves as film-makers and film fans from the way we utilize the notion of father as a driving character within these stories we tell on the screen? How should we think about storytelling and what compels us to focus on our relationships with fathers to articulate complex human dynamics? Oscar winning actor Troy Kotsur and director Emma Westenberg joined Dad Saves America host John Papola for a conversation about ...
Apr 13, 2023•47 min
What are you going to do with the rest of your life? That’s the big question we all face, especially after graduation. If you feel directionless, don’t worry. You're not alone. Today's guest, Nate Boyer, didn't have a clear path after high school, dropped out of college, and spent a year swabbing the deck on a fishing boat. He became a Green Beret, a walk-on player for the University of Texas Longhorns, played for the Seattle Seahawks, and even directed, wrote, and starred in a featu...
Apr 06, 2023•2 hr 16 min
For years, we have had artificial intelligence in our homes and pockets through voice assistants like Siri and Alexa. However, everything is changing with the newest generation of technologies, led by OpenAI's ChatGPT. The future of education, work, and human creativity has already been turned upside down, but recent advances in quantum computing may supercharge this transformation even further. These new systems can solve complex problems that today’s fastest supercomputers would take thous...
Mar 23, 2023•2 hr 51 min
