Robbie's back from Thanksgiving. He's tired, the holiday chaos is just getting started, there are birthdays and baby showers and Christmas and New Year's all stacking up, and he's recording this episode partly just to stay consistent and partly because he needed to process out loud. That's kind of the whole deal with this one.

This is a shorter, more candid episode about the specific kind of frustration and overwhelm that hits during the holiday stretch — when everything is supposed to feel magical and you're mostly just exhausted. Robbie also gives some context on changes he made to the early podcast episodes and where the show is heading.

Topics covered: why the holiday season hits differently when you're a parent and have actual responsibilities, processing overwhelm and frustration without letting it blow up on the people around you, why Robbie pulled some early episodes and where TUF Plus is heading, and an honest check-in from someone who's in the middle of the same holiday chaos you probably are right now.

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Last week there was no episode. Not because nothing was recorded — Robbie sat down every single day, got five or ten minutes in, and deleted it. Every time. Because it wasn't right. Wasn't perfect. Didn't sound the way he'd imagined it. Until he realized that the inability to get out of his own way was the episode.

This is one of the most honest episodes in the TUF catalog — about the vulnerability that goes into doing something creative in public, the specific fear of being seen as an "influencer" when you hate influencers, and why a first-grade music teacher telling him he couldn't sing might still be affecting the way he shows up today.

Topics covered: what perfectionism actually looks like when it's blocking your creative output, why vulnerability is harder for people who pride themselves on not caring what others think, the Enneagram 8 problem of simultaneously projecting confidence and being terrified of being seen, what Robbie wants his kids to learn from watching him do something hard in public, and why the courage to try imperfectly is more valuable than the ability to do it perfectly.

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Robbie's pastor mentioned a "He Gets Us" ad that ran during a baseball game — "Umps are people too." It was a throwaway moment. It sent Robbie down a whole train of thought about watching parents absolutely lose their minds at little league umpires, the time he volunteered to ump a game of six-year-olds and nearly had an emotional breakdown, and what that says about how we treat people we've decided don't deserve basic respect.

This one goes bigger than baseball. It's about a cultural pattern Robbie keeps noticing — the way political identity, social media aggression, and competitive tribalism have made it normal to treat other people like they're subhuman. And what it would actually look like to push back against that as a parent, as a person, and at the little league field.

Topics covered: the specific way competitive sports bring out the worst in parents and what Robbie plans to do differently when his boys are old enough to play, why treating people with basic dignity isn't weakness — and isn't the same as treating everyone equally, the divide-and-conquer cultural machine that keeps everyone at each other's throats, and the surprisingly practical case for just being decent to the ump.

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It's Thanksgiving Eve. Robbie's recording this with a ton on his plate — literally and figuratively — and he's been thinking about what gratitude actually means when life has genuinely been hard. Not the Instagram version. Not the motivational poster version. The real version, where you've had a rough year and you're still trying to find the thing to be thankful for without gaslighting yourself about it.

He also has strong opinions about Thanksgiving movies. Or more accurately, the complete lack of them. And the fact that Thanksgiving is technically just an intermission between Halloween and Christmas. He stands by all of this.

Topics covered: the difference between gratitude and contentment and why both matter, what it actually looks like to be thankful in a year that was genuinely difficult, why Robbie thinks contentment is harder and more valuable than gratitude, the Thanksgiving movie problem and why the holiday will never compete with Christmas until Hollywood fixes it, and a genuine reflection on what's good even when a lot hasn't been.

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Robbie sits down with Myer Krah — ten-year military veteran, anti-terrorism specialist, dad of four boys including twins, and host of the Here4TheDads podcast — for a conversation that happened exactly the way the best ones do: two dads who just met, talking about things that actually matter, with no agenda and no filter.

Myer found TUF through the algorithm, reached out almost immediately, and the two ended up on each other's shows the same week. This is the TUF side of that conversation — about the pivot from military life to fatherhood, why men lose the locker room conversations when they leave the locker room, and what it actually looks like to be a present, engaged dad when nobody taught you what that means.

Topics covered: Myer's transition from a decade in the military to being a full-time dad and podcaster, why fatherhood was a bigger identity shift than anything he experienced in the service, what men stop talking about when they leave the environments that made honest conversation normal, raising four boys and what that does to you, and the shared mission behind both shows — giving dads a space to be real.

👉 Connect with Myer: Follow @Here4TheDads on Instagram for dad tips, community events, and exclusive merch! Check out all his links below.

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/here4thedads/
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@Here4theDadsPodcast?app=desktop&sub_confirmation=1
Linktree - https://linktr.ee/here4thedads?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=23aaf450-7b24-49dd-8458-1058f847063f

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Robbie recorded this one the morning it dropped, hadn't slept great, had a big interview episode coming the following week, and just wanted to check in honestly. Every year since 2020 has felt harder than the last. He used to wonder if that was just him getting older and more pessimistic. Now he thinks it's just true — life gets more complex, more expensive, more demanding as you accumulate responsibilities. And that's not a complaint. It's just reality.

Short episode. Real thoughts. The kind of check-in that reminds you the person behind the mic is in the same mud as you are.

Topics covered: why every year seems harder than the last and whether that's perception or reality, how becoming a parent changed Robbie's empathy for people who struggle with the basic demands of adult life, why the fact that life gets harder doesn't mean it gets worse, a brief honest reflection on the year and what's ahead, and a preview of the interview episode dropping the following week.

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It's the day after the election. Robbie doesn't care who you voted for. He does care that you voted. What he's tired of is the performative outrage, the virtue signaling, the people who post "get out and vote, doesn't matter who" and then spend the rest of the day calling the other side subhuman. He's exhausted by all of it. This episode is his honest debrief.

This isn't a political episode. It's an episode about the cultural exhaustion that comes from living in a society where every four years the same cycle repeats — division, manipulation, media bias on both sides, and then everyone going back to their corners. Robbie falls somewhere in the political gray area and has opinions about why that's actually the more honest place to be.

Topics covered: why Robbie considers himself politically homeless and what that actually means, the specific hypocrisy of "just vote" culture that drives him crazy, how media manipulation on both sides has gotten worse with AI and new technology, what the post-election period should actually look like if you want to move forward productively, and how to stop letting the political machine drain your mental energy every four years.

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It's Halloween Eve. Robbie's in an orange shirt. There's a skeleton mask on the bed behind him. His family has had decorations up since mid-September when it was still 110 degrees outside. He's been mapping the trick-or-treat route with his kids for weeks. He takes this holiday seriously and he is not embarrassed about it.

This is a fun, seasonal episode that doubles as a real reflection on fear — the kind you enjoy at haunted houses, the kind that creeps in at 3am in a dark backyard, and the kind that comes with being responsible for little humans who are growing up faster than you're ready for.

Topics covered: why Robbie and his wife are Halloween people and what that looks like with young kids, haunted houses, scary movies, and the specific kind of fear he actually enjoys, watching his two-year-old finally be old enough to knock on doors and say trick or treat, and the quieter reflection underneath the holiday fun about the passage of time as a parent.

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Robbie's second born was a sleep terrorist. Average sleep score for the first eight months: three and a half to four and a half hours a night. The first two weeks were closer to two. He's not saying this to scare you — he's saying it so you know he's earned the right to talk about this.

This is a practical, real-world episode on sleep training, sleep schedules, and getting your kids to sleep long enough that you can actually function as a human being. Not a perfect scientific framework — just what worked for his family, what didn't, and why having some kind of system is better than having none.

Topics covered: why sleep training gets a bad reputation and what it actually involves, the specific methods and schedules Robbie and his wife used and why they helped, sleep regressions and what to do when everything falls apart again, why your kids sleeping well is directly connected to you being a better parent, and the honest truth that no matter what you do you're going to lose some sleep — but there are ways to lose less of it.

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Robbie played football in high school. He's a Packers fan. He has cheeseheads in the background of his recording setup. He is not coming after football as a sport. He is coming after the specific version of football fandom where an entire Saturday and Sunday disappears into a couch and a screen while your family orbits around you waiting for the game to end.

This is the episode that will probably make some dads defensive. Good. That means it landed. Robbie makes a direct, honest case for why the time football consumes — especially for dads with young kids — is worth examining before you defend it automatically. He's not saying stop watching. He's asking whether the current setup is actually working for your family.

Topics covered: the time math of being a full college and NFL football fan and what that actually costs your family every single week, Robbie's personal experience with football and why his relationship with it changed after having kids, the difference between being a fan and letting a sport run your household schedule, how to still enjoy football without it becoming the organizing principle of your weekends, and the honest conversation most football-loving dads haven't had with their partners yet.

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