Dad Tired Daily 004: Lions, a Thousand Cuts, and Gratitude

Dad Tired

Jerrad Lopes

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2026

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Host a Dad Tired Conference at Your Church

Some days don’t fall apart because of one big thing.
They fall apart because of a hundred small ones.

The gas light comes on.
The kids spill something.
The ice cream cone hits the floor.
Nothing catastrophic happens… and yet everything feels heavy.

In this episode of Dad Tired Daily, we talk about what psychologists call negativity bias—the way our brains are wired to fixate on what’s going wrong instead of what’s going right. It’s not because you’re ungrateful or negative. It’s because your brain is trained to look for threats.

But here’s the good news: what you pay attention to, your brain prioritizes.

Scripture tells us, “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) and “Forget not all His benefits” (Psalm 103:2). Gratitude isn’t about pretending things are great. It’s about retraining your soul to remember what’s good—even on hard days.

Today’s Practice:

Before your day gets rolling, list three things you’re thankful for.
They don’t have to be profound. Just real.

Gratitude rewires your brain.
It lowers stress.
It restores perspective.

And it helps you show up a little more healed for the people you love.

Strong families begin with healed men.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Today we're talking about lions being cut a thousand times and how to be grateful. Welcome
0:05.5	to Dad Tired Daily. Today's episode of the Dad Tired Daily podcast is brought to you by our
0:11.6	one-day Dad Tired conferences. We have these popping up all over the country, Mississippi,
0:16.6	Pennsylvania, Michigan. We're in talks with churches in Hawaii, in Canada. They are going all over
0:23.9	the place. So if you want to host one of these conferences or attend one of these conferences,
0:27.8	make sure to go to dadtire.com and click the conferences tab. Have you ever had a day where you,
0:33.7	like everything just feels negative? I call this the death by a thousand cuts kind of day.
0:40.4	Sometimes my wife and I will check in with each other.
0:43.0	And I'll say, like, how was your day?
0:44.5	Or she'll ask me, how was my day?
0:45.7	And I'll just say it was a death by a thousand cuts kind of day.
0:49.2	It's like no one big thing, bad thing happened.
0:53.0	But it just feels like everything like it keeps going wrong.
0:56.8	The gas light came on or the kids spilled all over the kitchen or I was literally just at Chick-fil-A.
1:03.5	I'm there too often. And I'm like a red member. I don't know what that means, but I'm way too
1:08.4	high up in their reward system, which means I've
1:11.6	eaten way too much Chick-fil-A. Anyway, we were just there and we were trying to get ready to
1:15.6	load up the car. And, you know, I'm there by myself with the four kids. And my daughter, like,
1:21.2	she begged for an ice cream cone. I finally get her an ice cream cone. And as we're walking
1:26.4	out, the whole cone just like flips over and
1:28.4	falls on the floor really not a huge deal but when it's like a death by a thousand cuts kind of day
1:34.5	it just feels ultra annoying or negative or just you know it i think you know as a dad what i'm trying
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 26 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jerrad Lopes, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jerrad Lopes and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.