Back on the Monday grind. Wild weekend of sports. Hope your team came out on top.

Here’s what’s on tap today:

Let’s get into it.

And if you’re new here, welcome aboard. Glad you found us.

The following comes from Shaan Puri over at My First Million. He shared this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote:

“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.”

Then he gave a pretty simple exercise.

Answer with the first word that comes to mind:

No right answers. But the words you come up with probably say quite a bit about how you’re walking around right now.

And dad life gives that stuff plenty of places to show itself.

Maybe “life is stressful” because, at the moment, it really is. Maybe people have been pissing you off lately. Maybe the word that comes to mind for yourself isn’t one you’re particularly proud of.

That doesn’t mean you need to slap a positive spin on everything. Just interesting to notice what your brain reaches for first.

Because that version of the world is the one you’re bringing home to your people.

Michael Chernow is an entrepreneur, founder, and dad of two boys in New York City.

What stood out most from Michael is how honest he is about the difference between being physically home and actually being present. He has built his schedule so he can be around his family, but getting his mind to downshift from work mode has been the harder part.

A few years ago, he realized he was walking through the door with too much work energy. Emails still going. Brain still spinning. One day, he snapped at his son Finn for trying to get his attention, and immediately knew he had it wrong. His kid didn’t want much. He just wanted Dad to be there.

Now Michael turns his phone off in the truck before he walks inside.

His biggest lesson for dads is that presence and attention are the real currency. Money matters. Work matters. But the memories you make with your family are the stuff that actually enriches your life.

His non-negotiable is simple: no phones at any tables, ever.

Follow him at @michaelchernow.

We’ve been rocking Mack Weldon for a few years now, so we jumped at the chance to work with them.

The result is a Dad Day x Mack Weldon collection of activewear for parenting, work and everything in between. You really can’t go wrong with anything in here, but our two favorites are the ACE Hoodie and the Airknit boxer briefs. We’ve swapped out the whole underwear drawer for the briefs.

[ Shop the Collection ]

Sponsored. We only work with brands we actually use.

We saw this idea in 5HT about more people moving into “optimization mode,” and the useful part is pretty simple: you do not need to fix everything at once.

Pick one thing you wanna be better at this month and make it your thing. Maybe it’s lifting twice a week, getting 10k steps, drinking less during the week, or finally going to bed earlier.

The goal (we repeat) is not to chase every health hack. Just become the guy who actually does the one thing he said he was going to do.

PS: If you need some extra motivation or just a sounding board, we have a #fitness-health channel in our Slack group.