Butler Shay - Fat Dad, Fat Kid: One Father and Sons Journey to Take Power Away from the F-Word

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I N 1956, THE GREAT SPEAKER and author Earl Nightingale recorded and released a thirty-minute spoken-word record that literally changed my life. It had already sold millions of copies before I discovered it two decades later. Since I was twelve years old, Ive listened to that presentation, The Strangest Secret , literally hundreds of times. I could go on and on about the dozens of gems in that talk, but it all boils down to one key point, one central theme, that Nightingale believed was responsible for whatever success or failure any of us ever have in life. That core message is simply this: You become what you think about.

Nightingale believed that success didnt just happen; there is no such thing as stumbling into great success. Instead, he defined success as the progressive realization of a worthy goal. If you set your mind on something, and if you think about it every day and pour your heart and soul into achieving that goal, youre a successwhether youve hit the goal yet or not.

When I think about that kind of focus and intentionalitywhat it takes to win in life, money, and businessI cant help but think about my friend Shay Butler. This guy is the walking, talking, screaming embodiment of focus. Over the past few years, Ive watched Shay set, work toward, and completely crush some incredible goals. Since he lives his life in the public eye through his wildly popular YouTube channel, youve gotten to watch him too. Weve all been able to see the intentionality with which he approaches his roles as husband, father, businessman, and even Internet celebrity. You cant help but love this guy.

The first time I met Shay was when he called into my daily radio program, The Dave Ramsey Show . On air, I talk to people about personal finance and teach them how to get on a budget, get out of debt, and build wealth. Everyday, people call in to do what we call their debt-free screams. That means theyve been working hard over a long period of time to pay off all their debt, except the mortgage, and theyre calling the show to tell their story and scream, WERE DEBT FREE!

One day back in January 2011, I got a call from Shay and Colette in Idaho, who were calling to do their debt-free scream on the air. They told me, and the rest of the country, about their four-year journey to knock out $195,000 of debt! I could tell this guy was focused. We get debt-free calls every day, but talking to a couple who has been so focused for so long on such a huge amount is still pretty amazing. It was obvious that Shay and Colette made an incredible team and that building their marriage and family was a key focus for them.

As the call went on, he told me that he spent the first three years of that process working random jobs as a car salesman and a granite installer, but he had made a career change the fourth year that totally turned his family and his finances upside down. He explained how he had put all of his focus into something he was personally passionate about and gifted at, and as a result had basically quadrupled his income in a year by making YouTube videos with his family!

Later that day, my Twitter account blew up with people congratulating Shay and Colette. I got messages like, Dave, you just had a rock star call into your show and you didnt even know it! They were right. I didnt know it at the time, but I had just had met one of the most impressive guys Ill ever meet. We stayed in touch, and we became fast friends.

Not long after that, I joined the rest of the YouTube world in watching Shay tackle his next big goal: weight loss. His business and financial success werent important if he was putting his healthand therefore his familyat risk by being more than one hundred pounds overweight. As he lost the weight, he and I talked about how we could celebrate hitting his goal, and we decided that wed run the Nashville Country Music Marathon together. So, about a year later, Shay met me in Nashville and we ran togetherfor thirteen miles, anyway. I only did the half; Shay ran the full thing!

Over the past few years, Ive watched Shay completely smash through every goal hes set his eyes on, from establishing a godly marriage and family to getting out of debt to building a successful business to getting in shape. Now, Shay and his son, Gavin, are focused on a new goal: Making sure health and fitness arent just a Shay thing, but a family thing. In Fat Dad, Fat Kid , youll laugh and maybe cry as you always do with Shay, as he and Gavin invite you into their challenges.

In The Strangest Secret , Earl Nightingale said, Every one of us is the sum total of his own thoughts. He is where he is, because that is where he really wants to be, whether hell admit it or not. You can do or be anything you want if you are intentional, genuine, and focused. And I cant think of a better model for those things than my friend, Shay Butler.

I LOVE BEING A DAD. Its the second most important title I have. Husband is number one, and Ill say more about my amazing wife, Colette, laterI could write a romance novel about that gorgeous woman. But being a good father is an achievement that Im immensely proud of.

I love my kids so much that it makes me cry. Sitting here right now, thinking about each one of them individually brings tears to my eyes. Colette and I have five amazing children. Theres Gavin, whos writing this book with me; my girls, Avia and Emmi; and another two little guys, Brock and Daxton.

The whole reason I started on YouTube was so I could spend more time with my kids. Thats another story Ill tell you more about later on, but long story short, I worked all kinds of jobs before I discovered that YouTube could provide for my family and allow me to actually see them on a regular basis. In one of my first ever YouTube videos, I put on one of Colettes unitards and did a pretty damn sexy dance, if I do say so myself. (That dance pretty much sums up why we have five kidsand explains where the Shaytards tag came from.) I didnt know then it would lead me to where I am today.

My kids are my medicine. There are times during my day when I feel overwhelmed or stressed out about a project, or this book deadline, or a comment that I just read on one of our Shaytards vlogs, or any number of things that us humans get stressed out about during a typical day. The only thing that makes me feel better is a good wrestling session with one of my kids. It works without fail every single time. Its like a secret drug that nobody knows about. Ill be sitting at my desk, trying to answer the dump trucks worth of messages that pour into my Gmail every twenty minutes, feeling like crap and on the verge of friggin out. But then Ill get up from what Im doing and go hang out with my kids. Now, instead of being a thirty-four-year-old man who has to answer important emails about production budgets, Im a Velociraptor. As I enter their room with my head bobbing back and forth in a lizardlike motion and my hands clutched in front of my body, mimicking dinosaur claws, I let out a screech that lets my children know a Velociraptor is about to attack them.