July 3, 2026

What walks through the door with you?

When Work Follows You Home

Inside this issue

Build Emotional Resilience Like Physical Fitness
The Two-Minute Reset
Time to Sprint: Audit Your Triggers
What’s one small trigger in your daily life that you’d handle differently if you were more intentional about your response?
Connect with Colin
Check out this week’s episode
The Last Laugh: This meeting is called to order
But before we get to all that, here’s what’s…

On My Mind

Most dads don’t realize how much they bring home with them. Not physically, but mentally.

Stress from work.

Financial pressure.

Frustration.

Comparison.

The feeling that you should be doing more, earning more, handling things better.

And even when you don’t say any of it out loud, your family still feels it.

This week’s conversation with Colin C. Thompson kept pulling me back to one idea over and over again: the transition between work and home matters more than most of us think.

Colin said something during our conversation that I think a lot of dads will recognize immediately:

“When you walk through that door as daddy, as dad, I’m going to set the tone for the rest of the evening.”

That’s real because most of us don’t walk through the door intentionally. We walk through the door carrying whatever the day did to us.

What I appreciated about Colin’s perspective is that he didn’t frame this as some unrealistic pursuit of constant calm or positivity. He talked honestly about exhaustion, noise, burnout, frustration, and how hard it can be to shift from work mode into family mode especially when kids don’t care that you had a stressful day.

One of the most practical ideas from the episode was his comparison between physical fitness and emotional fitness. Most dads try to overhaul their reactions during major parenting moments. Colin’s point was simpler: start smaller.

Practice responding differently to small frustrations first. Build momentum. Build awareness. Build capacity. This approach feels a lot more sustainable than trying to become a completely different person overnight.

And, honestly, I think a lot of fatherhood works that way: not through giant breakthroughs, but through repeated small decisions.

Build Emotional Resilience Like Physical Fitness

Real behavioral change usually starts smaller than we think. Colin compared emotional resilience to training for a race. If you’ve never run five miles before, you don’t start there. But that’s exactly what many dads do emotionally. They wait until a huge parenting moment happens, then expect themselves to suddenly respond perfectly.

Why it Matters

Big reactions usually aren’t about one isolated moment. They’re the result of stress buildup, repeated patterns, exhaustion, and unpracticed emotional control.

Emotional resilience works the same way physical fitness does: small reps build capacity.

How to Start

Colin’s advice was surprisingly practical: pick one small trigger that frustrates you for 5 to 10 minutes. Not the biggest conflict in your house. Not the hardest parenting challenge. Something small.

His example? Stepping on Legos barefoot.

Instead of exploding:

Pause
Pick it up
Put it away
Move on

That’s the rep.

Why it Works

Small wins create momentum. You’re teaching yourself that frustration doesn’t automatically require escalation, and over time, those reps build confidence that you can respond differently in bigger moments, too.

Pro Tip

Don’t focus on perfection. Focus on shortening the recovery time after frustration. That’s progress.

The Two-Minute Reset

The challenge usually isn’t knowing how to be present. It’s switching gears fast enough to actually do it because the reality is that work stress doesn’t magically disappear when the workday ends. If you carry tension straight into the evening, your family usually feels it immediately.

Why it Works

Tiny pauses create awareness. And awareness creates better responses. Even a brief reset can help you move from reactive to intentional.

Try This

Take two minutes before switching into family mode.

Not thirty.

Not an hour.

Two minutes.

During those two minutes:

Put your phone down
Stop checking email
Take a few deep breaths
Ask yourself, “What version of me is about to walk into this room?”

That’s it.

Why it Matters

You can’t always control how stressful your day was, but you can control whether you bring that energy directly into your next interaction.

Pro Tip

Try not to use your phone during your two-minute reset. If you open email or Slack “one last time,” your brain usually stays at work.

Time to Sprint: Audit Your Triggers

Colin made a great point during our conversation: most dads already know the situations that trigger them. The problem is we usually wait until we’re in the moment to figure out how to respond.

This sprint is about getting ahead of it.

Why it Matters

The reactions your family sees most often eventually become your patterns. And patterns are hard to change when you only think about them after something goes wrong. A little awareness ahead of time can completely change how you respond in the moment.

How to Do It

Minutes 0–5: Make the List

Write down 3 situations that consistently frustrate you.

Examples:

Bedtime stalling
Sibling fighting
Interruptions during work
Being ignored the first time you ask
Feeling overwhelmed by noise
Stepping on Legos barefoot

No judgment. Just honesty.

Minutes 5–15: Identify the Pattern

For each trigger, answer:

What do I usually do?
How do I usually sound?
What happens afterward?

The goal isn’t guilt. It’s awareness.

Minutes 15–20: Choose One Better Response

Pick just ONE trigger to work on this week.

Then decide: what would a slightly better response look like?

Not perfect. Just better.

Examples:

Lower your voice
Pause before reacting
Stop repeating yourself immediately
Walk away for 30 seconds
Make eye contact before correcting

Bonus 5 Minutes: Rehearse It

Colin talked about the importance of visualization and rehearsal. So picture the moment happening again. Visualize yourself responding differently. It sounds simple, but that’s how behavioral change actually starts.

Why it Works

Most reactions aren’t spontaneous. They’re rehearsed. The good news is better responses can be rehearsed, too. The more familiar a calmer response becomes in your mind, the easier it is to access when things get chaotic.

Pro Tip

Start with the trigger that frustrates you for five minutes, not five hours. Small wins build momentum faster than trying to overhaul your hardest parenting challenges immediately.

Your Move

What’s one small trigger in your daily life that you’d handle differently if you were more intentional about your response? Hit reply and let me know. I read every response.

Connect with Colin

Colin C. Thompson is an entrepreneur, speaker, and certified positive intelligence coach focused on helping people improve how they respond to pressure, stress, and everyday challenges.

Colin’s approach is super practical. He doesn’t talk about becoming perfectly calm all the time. He talks about building awareness, setting boundaries, and practicing better responses little by little.

A lot of dads will recognize themselves in his work, especially if you’ve ever felt physically present at home, but mentally stuck somewhere else.

Follow Colin

On his websites: https://www.oligye.com and https://www.colincthompson.com

On Facebook: https://facebook.com/colin.c.thompson

On LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/colincthompson/

On the Show This Week

Continue the Conversation

This conversation felt less like a discussion about parenting tactics and more like a discussion about emotional habits. About the pressure dads carry quietly. About how stress and frustration can spill into the people around us even when we think we’re hiding it well.

Colin and I talked about:

why boundaries matter more than balance
how burnout often starts long before work feels overwhelming
the pressure dads put on themselves to always be “on”
why emotional reactions are usually rehearsed patterns
how small behavioral changes create momentum over time
the difference between being physically present and mentally present

One of the most consequential things Colin said was that “most kids are okay with their environment. It’s the parents who want to keep up with the Joneses.”