I'm Alec lace. Welcome to First Class fatherhood. Welcome everybody to episode 275 and a podcast. I am happy as always to be here with you. Thank you for stopping by if this is your first time listening to the podcast. Please get over there and bang that subscribe button. You do not want to miss all the action that's coming your way right here on First Class fatherhood. All right dad's I have an unbelievable guest to bring you guys today. He is the president and the face of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which is the largest mixed martial arts organization in the world Dana White joins. On the podcast today and under his leadership. The UFC has grown into a multi-billion dollar Enterprise is very exciting to have him here with me today, especially on the eve of UFC 244 going down tomorrow night in Madison Square Garden Dana. White will be here with me in just a few minutes. So please stick around for the interview. And as I have done here with some of the other Heavy Hitters that I've had the honor of speaking with on the show here such as skateboarding legend Tony Hawk and it fell Hall of Famer Deion Sanders and the Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort. I understand that having Dana. White on the podcast here will introduce a large number of new listeners to the podcast. So I would like to take a second here to reiterate the purpose and the vision of first-class fatherhood, which is to change The Narrative of fatherhood and family life far too many young men in this country have a negative outlook on what it means to become a father and start a family many guys have the idea that becoming a dad is something to avoid or put off until much later in life combined this poor philosophy with the way that dads are portrayed on TV and in the movies also with the attack on masculinity. Is all helped to lead to a fatherless crisis in our country and wherever we see communities that have high levels of crime drug use teenage pregnancy teenage suicide and all these other things you are going to see a high elevated percentage of fatherless households. So what I have done here is gathered a collection of interviews with men who have just been crushing it in life. I'm talking about Super Bowl MVPs NFL Hall of Famers SEAL Team Six operators, New York Times bestselling authors world champion Fighters award-winning actors. And many other high-profile men who have stated that despite all of their accomplishments in life. It has been truly experience of fatherhood that they have felt the greatest sense of fulfillment in their life and their testimonies are a much more realistic view of what being a dad is truly all about as far as for myself. I am a 39 year old father of four children ages 13 12 8 and 5 at the moment married for 15 years. I've been a railroad mechanic for 20 years. I drive Uber on the weekends. I'm a recovering alcoholic and addict and I host the number. Fatherhood podcast in the country first class fatherhood. All right, so welcome to the show here and I'd like to encourage you guys to introduce this podcast to anybody that you know, that is a father or more importantly about to become a father. All right and despite what many people may think out there. We are not babysitters. We are not assistant mom's we are fathers and we're not just father's we are first-class fathers and every day is Father's Day right here with me and I'm going to be right back with UFC president Dana White. I'm Alec lace, and you are listening to First Class fatherhood. Hey Dad's, are you looking to boost your energy level Strike Force energy has got you covered when they Strike Force energy packet, you can turn any beverage into an energy drink their original energy packets contain no sugar. No calories, just an explosion of energy and flavor added to any beverage Strike Force energy is veteran-owned and all their products are made right here in the United States co-founded by Navy SEAL. Sean Matson Strike Force energy blows away the energy drink competition right now first class fatherhood listeners can save 15% off their purchase by visiting Strikeforce energy.com and using the promo code fatherhood Strike Force energy turns any beverage into an energy drink get yours today Strikeforce energy.com promo code fatherhood. All right joining me now is a first-class father. He is the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and it is just an honor for me to say Dana White. Welcome to First Class fatherhood. Thanks for having me. All right, let's start right here. How many kids do you have? And how old are they? I have three kids. My oldest is is 18 my son and then my other son is 17. They're exactly a year apart. And then my daughter is 13. Okay, awesome. What type of sports activities are they all in to? Well, my oldest plays football and my younger son played football and he fights he boxes and then my my daughter is into gymnastics cheerleading and she's really good volleyball player. Okay. Yeah, very cool. Do you ever get involved with coaching at all? And you like to enjoy all that stuff and no. No, I don't. I don't do the coaching thing man. I have some people that are Really good coaches coach mm. You know, the father kid coaching things. Sometimes it works out but most the time it doesn't have seen a lot of bad experiences with parents coaching. Yeah, I hear that. All right, if you could Dana please just take a minute here to hit my lips are a little bit about your background and what you do, my name is Dana White. I'm the president of the UFC the Ultimate Fighting Championship me and my partner's the Fertitta Brothers bought the company 20 years ago and you know, I've been involved. I've been involved ever since we sold the company to WME IMG and 2016. I think and I stayed on as an owner and you know president for the last however many years has been three three and a half years. Yeah. It's been an incredible journey that you've had here with the UFC about. How old were you when you first became a dad data and how did becoming a father kind of change your perspective on life? I think I was 31. I was 31 when we had Dana my first son and you know when you have a kid, it changes everything it changes the way you look at life changes the way you look at you know, what you want not it's not about you anymore. It becomes about them. And I don't know it's the greatest thing that you can do. It's really you realize. Why we're here we're here to become parents and and to raise children. Yeah, very well said and you've obviously had massive success here with making the UFC what it is today, but I know that comes with a lot of hard work. So what were some of the challenges of being a dad while building the UFC the biggest challenge and being a father and doing it, you know, not just building a business. But whether you work or whatever it is is is missing is missing things as missing whether it's their play at school. Or they're big game that weekend. Whatever. It might be are you know them walking or whatever, you know, those are the things that that are the hardest are missing things. I've been very fortunate and that you know, we have like the largest production company and Nevada, so I didn't miss anything if I had to be on the road. Thank God for technology because I would stream their games live or stream a play or you know, whatever it might be I got I see everything. So I think that's the toughest part and being a parent. You don't have to be building an organization like the UFC you can be a guy that has to go to work, you know every day and pay the bills and miss these certain amazing things in your kids lives that you would rather see ya. Yeah right on with that and what about discipline Dana? What type of disciplinary and are you as a father and is it different than the disciplines valuable? Wait, yeah. Yeah. It's exact opposite of what I grew up with. You know, I've never beat the shit out of my kids. You know, I've had the shit kicked out of me a few times when I was a kid and you know, I don't think it made me, you know, I wish I shouldn't say that. I think there's some you know, the fear of the ass-kicking might have made me, you know, stop doing something that I was doing or not do something because of it, but it wasn't As a father what I believed and I feel like you know, you lost a little respect with with some of the beatings that I took but you know, I've never done that to my kids, you know, and there's a certain age where you know, your kids don't fear you like they did when they were younger. So it makes it a little tougher to discipline them and especially my son Aiden who was fought and and Trained and things like that, you know, I he's too tough for that shit. He's too tough for me to try to play that. You know that role with him, so I just try to reason with them and it works with some kids and others. It doesn't like my oldest son. Dana can be reasoned with my younger son. Aiden is a little tougher to to deal with, you know, because much like me at a very young age. He started becoming his own guy. There's just a certain age where your kids start figuring out who they are and who they want to be and what they want to do or you have your kids that are confused and don't know who they are. What they want to do. So I think there's different ways to discipline different kids. You can have the same kids grow up in the same house, you know, same parents same everything yet. They're complete opposites and how you deal with them and how they deal with you. Yeah. Yeah. Well said that's exactly the Stitch. I got four kids myself and all four of them couldn't be more different when it comes to trying to handle them with discipline Styles and everything else. So it's incredible how that works out. So true man, and listen. Nobody has all the answers that's all trial and error and you try to do the best you can you know for each kid and try to you know Guide them in the best ways that you can and it just it's it's all trial and error. Nobody has the answers. Yeah and your kids obviously. My oldest is only 13. So I'm just on the onset of the teenagers here, but you've already hit the mark where they started driving. What was it like for you to first time when your kids learned that a driving you got in the car with your kid? Yeah, so I again I've been fortunate because I had family up in Maine up in this part of Maine called Levant Maine and it's out in the sticks and you know, we started driving when I was like eight or nine my uncle would say get in the car and we would drive, you know through town and everything else. There's not a lot of police out there. So nobody nobody cared back then so I took my kids up there and my kids started driving at a really young age. Like like my daughter, we we have all this property and you know, my kids would drive from one house to the other and so they got accustomed to drive and real young which I think is important stuff to do in a city like Vegas or New York Chicago Boston stuff like that. But you know the I had them doing it young. So my son Dana when he started driving I wasn't too worried about it. He was a good driver. I felt confident and comfortable with the experience and the Notice that he had had up in Maine and some stuff we did in Vegas to in our community, you know driving around and then my younger son Aiden who 17 now still doesn't have a license, you know, like I said two different kids. He had a 16th birthday party. He got a beautiful car for his birthday. He could care less about driving. He Ubers everywhere. YouTubers are his friends pick him up. He could care less about driving. So those are the two experiences and again like most fathers. I'm nervous about my daughter. She's 13, you know, we got a couple of years to go with her. But when she starts driving, that's the one that's going to make me nervous. Yeah, right on with that. My daughter's my youngest two out of the four. She's only five so I got a ways to go there but I drive over on the weekend saying and I see it all the time. I see kids that are older that don't even have to get even bother to get their license and it's kind of mind-blowing to me because I was always like the big thing you thought of when you were a kid when I was growing up. It was the only thing you thought of you didn't care about anything else. Listen, there's two things that I knew. Ooh, when I turned 16 a I wasn't getting the car but be I was getting that license, you know, your license was everything when we were growing up. It was your sense of Freedom. Like you had a driver's license you could do whatever, you know, even if you didn't have a car you got your license these kids today don't give a shit. It's the craziest thing ever. One of the other things that I noticed obviously all the time. And when I drive them around is that they don't communicate with one another to hedger in the phone. I know I see your one son has an Instagram account. How do you kind of Monitor and handle all the Social media and the technology we kids. Yeah, that's that's a great question. Nothing beats an American flag made in the USA. Right? Well, how about an American flag made in the USA by veterans out of Duty worn for Tiegs from all branches of the military. That is exactly what you get with combat Flags combat flags are handcrafted from Duty wore fatigues and offer a tangible piece of freedom to the American people. Each flag is accompanied by a professionally designed and printed card that tells the story of service of a soldier Marine Airman sailor or coastie who wore the fatigues used to make the flag. They are the real deal. Dad. So what are you waiting for visit combat? Legs.com and use the promo code father and first class fatherhood listeners will save 10% off their purchase veteran owned American made combat Flags.com promo code father. All right guys, many of you have hit me up saying that you would like to start your own podcast and I am telling you right now anchor is the easiest way to get this done. Number one, it's free. I have never paid. A dime to publish any of my podcasts and their creation tools allow you to record and edit right from your phone or your computer anchored those all the distribution as well. So it can be heard on Spotify Apple podcast and many more also you can make money with no minimum. Listen to Ship its everything you need to make a podcast in one place. What are you waiting for download the free anchor app today or go to Anchor dot? F m-- to get started. I see your one son has An Instagram account, how do you kind of Monitor and handle all the social media and the technology we had kids? Yeah. That's that's a great question. You know, it was it was one of the things that will my wife and I, you know sort of didn't agree on when they started to get older, you know, they started wanting to be on social media and there's so many nasty people on social media and things like that, but I said listen the kids got to get used to it, you know, people are going to talk shit to him and say A bad things about me and and and and and you know, whatever it might be but it's the future it's where they're going to live and where they're going to communicate with their friends. They got to get used to it. And I think it's gone pretty well. My kids are pretty level-headed and you know, they'll come to me and say hey this guy just said this about you and I'm like, yeah, we'll get used to it guys people going to say a lot of things and they've handled it pretty well. Yeah, I think Twitter is the where I'm only been on there since I started this podcast up and Since I've been on other things like Twitter is really where all the nastiness is really is the worst of all of them. So there's some of the some pretty nasty ones on Instagram to you know, you're always going to have these I call them nameless faceless cowards most most of them are people who have private accounts. If you notice most of the stuff that's nasty comes from people with private accounts. And you know, you have to consider the source when you're when you're reading the stuff from people like that. Yeah, definitely hundred percent and what about as far as the fighters in the UFC Dana as far as father's go. Do you notice any difference in the guys that are family men that are fighting as opposed to that single guy that Lone Wolf fighter. Oh, absolutely. Yeah and you notice a difference in guys that were single and had no kids and then when they end up having kids it changes you man, it's just it just it does. There's nothing you can do about it. It changes you in many different ways. Mostly for the positive, you know, if you're if you're if you're a good father changes you for the positive, you know, I've always had this philosophy about people always ask me about my legacy and you know your legacy and what I do for a living what I do for a living at the end of the day means nothing it's when you when your life is over and you're laying there in that box and whoever shows up here to your funeral shows up. The only thing that Matters and your only real Legacy are your children and you know, hopefully you've lived a life and done things, right and they get up and say he was a great father. I mean at the end of the day nothing else matters who you were as an employee or who you were as a business owner or as whatever Walk of Life you chose to pay the bills. The only real Legacy you have in the only thing that means anything is what those kids have to say about you. Yeah, very well said have you ever done like a Father's Day card? We have just Dad's on you know on the card. No, we've never done that but do you be so dumb? There's you know, there's a lot of fighters in the UFC that are really good Dads and you know, you know have families and live completely normal lives compared. What you would think of guys who fight in the cage? I've spoken to a few of them here on the podcast. And what about as far as your kids? When did you first introduce your kids to the UFC? And when was the first time they actually attended device by introduce them to the to the sport at a very young age and had them training at a very young age. You know, when you have kids and daughters are no different, you know, it's your job as a father to make sure that they can handle themselves and and you know can defend themselves. I think that's a very important. Part of life, you know because bullying and getting picked on and all that stuff is real and it doesn't just happen to kids happens the grown-ups to and adults that, you know, whether it's at work or out on weekends or whatever. It might be. It's a it's a reality in life and it's always been something that was very important to me is that my kids learned how to defend themselves. So they they were involved in this at a very very young age. But this is my love and my passion Passion and what drives me and what's meat gets me out of bed every day, but that's not that doesn't mean that's what's going to drive your kids and like my oldest son loves football. My younger son is at a point in his age where it's it's all about girls right now and you know and hanging out with his friends and my daughter has, you know volleyball and she loves gymnastics and things like that. So, you know, they haven't really Fallen in love with the sport the way that that I am in the way that I have in my life, but you know, which is great. I want them to find their own their own way in their own path and what it is that's going to you know, fire them up and get them out of bed in the morning. Yeah, well said and you mentioned there you got one son that's already chasing the girls. How did you kind of handle that when they started to hit that dating scene and all you prepared here for when you go to start start to you know, I was cool with the boys. I don't care what they do. You know that your son's it's whatever my daughter is the one that I'm going to have a real hard time with she already knows that she's not allowed to date until she's 30. Yeah. Like I said, my daughter is five. I'm already dreading up. I got three boys ahead of her here. So hopefully, you know, it'll be a while before I die. To get involved in anything. Yeah, and you got three bodyguards so that works. Perfect. What about nothing? What's the future of the UFC here Dana? What kind of goals are plans do you have for yourself for the future? They listen what's next for me is what's going on here? We're continuing to grow the sport and this brand and going into other countries. We're going into France this year this last year. We we got a fight coming up in Korea and New Market in Korea mom. Moscow, you know continuing to grow throughout Russia and the Middle East Africa is taken off for us because we have an African Champion the list goes on and on man. This is this is what I love to do. This. This is truly my passion and I'm just as fired up every day. Now as I was 20 years ago, so I'm going to continue to do this my son graduates. This is a senior year. He looks like he's going to head out and go to USB so Looks like I'm gonna be spending a lot of time in San Diego over the next four years and whatever School my younger son decides to go to you know, just moving on into that next chapter of my life with my older Boys in college. Yeah, very cool. No, I didn't I school. Yeah, I got one going to high school next year to I'm kind of bracing for impact for that myself, but we got UFC 244 this weekend here. We almost we almost didn't have it. What happened? There and what we expect to see here this weekend. Well, it wasn't as close to not happen as people think it was, you know, things happen. There's there's other stuff going on with this card right now behind the scenes that the public doesn't know that we have to deal with we always have to deal with some type of bullshit behind the scenes leading up to a fight and you know, one of the things that makes us the best in the world not just the best in the world the best ever do it is, you know, we usually figure it out in the It's go on whether it's with a different opponent or whatever the case may be. But you know, we're used to dealing with this stuff. Yeah, very cool. Alright last thing. I want to hit you with your Dana. I love to ask all the dads that I got on the podcast. What type of advice do you have for that new father or for that about the be dad leave out there listening? Well, I think I think my best advice would be when you when you have a baby. It's always really hard in every sense of the word hard. You're not sleeping. Beeping much financially, it becomes very very tough. You know, it's very expensive but it's the greatest thing that you will ever do and it only gets better. You will figure out the financial side and you will figure out time and sleep and all that other stuff. It just it gets better every single day and it is the most rewarding thing that you can do in life. There is never a right time. You know what I mean? If you say I got to wait for the right time, there's never Right time when you have a kid, you just got to you just got to jump in with both feet and and roll with the punches man that works out and it's the most rewarding thing you can ever do in your life. Yeah, Barry well said, I love the message. It has been an honor for me. I got to say Dana White, you're a first-class father all the way and thank you so much for give me a few minutes of your time on First Class fatherhood. Thank you. I really appreciate it. And what a cool podcast is. One of the coolest ones I've ever did and congrats seriously. I mean it what a cool podcast concept and I love it good for you man continued success. Back to wrap things up here. I'm first class fatherhood. I got to give a special. Thank you. Once again to Dana White for giving me a few minutes of his time here at was so awesome. Please hit me up on Twitter guys or drop me a DM on Instagram. Let me know what you thought about today's podcast. I always love to read your feedback. If you're not following me on Instagram. Check me out at Alec underscore lace, or you could follow me at first glace fatherhood. All right, I'd love to hear your opinion on today's episode and you can check out all the guests will be joining me here next. Tweak including NFL great Carson Palmer will be on the podcast and many other dads. What a way to kick-off November with the president of the UFC Dana White today October is in the books in October. We had five NFL Hall of Famers to Navy SEAL Medal of Honor recipients The Wolf of Wall Street and many more if you missed out on any of last month's action. Please go through the archives and check them out today. All right, that's all I got for you guys today. I'm Alec lace. Thank you for listening to first-class fatherhood. And please remember guys, we are not babysitters. We are Others and we're not just father's we are first class fathers.
Episode 275 Dana White is a First Class Father and President Of The Ultimate Fighting Championship. Under Dana’s leadership, the UFC has grown into a Multi-Billion Dollar enterprise and the largest MMA organization in the world. In this Episode, Dana shares his Fatherhood journey, he talks about the challenges of growing the UFC while being a Dad, he tells us how he handles discipline and social media with his kids, he discusses the real legacy he cares about leaving behind, he gives us his vision for the future of the UFC, he talks about the changes in fighters once they become fathers, he offers some great advice for new or about to be Dads and more! First Class Fatherhood is sponsored by:  STRIKE FORCE ENERGY - Visit https://www.strikeforceenergy.com Use Promo Code: Fatherhood  SEATGEEK - Visit https://seatgeek.com Use Promo Code: FIRSTCLASS SAVE $20 OFF Tickets  Subscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCD6cjYptutjJWYlM0Kk6cQ  First Class Fatherhood Merch - https://shop.spreadshirt.com/first-class-fatherhood-/we+are+not+babysitters-A5d09ea872051763ad613ec8e?productType=812&sellable=3017x1aBoNI8jJe83pw5-812-7&appearance=1  Follow me on instagram - https://instagram.com/alec_lace?igshid=ebfecg0yvbap  For information about becoming a Sponsor of First Class Fatherhood please hit me with an email: FirstClassFatherhood@gmail.com  ---   This episode is sponsored by  · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. 