About This Episode - 

When Clint and his wife Amarillys lost their son Gabriel in a tragic flying accident at age 17, the grief was devastating. Nothing prepares a man for this kind of pain, but in the journey, Clint and Amarillys made some important decisions that helped guide them through a process of healing, understanding, and marital strength. Learn more at - https://www.bigboldbrave.us

Warren Mainard is the National Director of IMPACT Players, an author, speaker, and connector. He has 30 years of ministry experience as a pastor, nonprofit leader, and church planter. You can connect with Warren on Facebook, Instagram, and X. Warren is also available to speak on your podcast or event! Email him at [email protected].

Jon Beazley is the owner of Mind and Body and the host of the Mind and Body Podcast! Jon has served as a church planter and pastor and now as an entrepreneur and small business owner. You can connect with Jon on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Clint Hatton is an author, speaker, former pastor, transformational leadership coach, and Founder of BigBoldBrave. BigBoldBrave was inspired by the life of my oldest son Gabriel, a 17 year old licensed pilot who tragically died in a plane crash in 2019. In addition to his leadership coaching, Clint also serves at Excellent Cultures that uses scientific data to transform corporate culture. You can connect with Clint on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

To find out more about IMPACT Players, visit www.impactplayers.org.

Additional Resources Mentioned:

• .Freedom from Anxious Thoughts and Feelings by Dr. Scott Symington

Listen: Apple | Spotify

Transcript

 Warren Mainard: Hello and welcome back to another edition of the IMPACT Players Linking Shields podcast. My name is Warren Mainard, I'm the National Director of IMPACT Players. With me is my co-host, Jon Beazley, who is the founder of Mind & Body. And together we are so excited to host Clint Hatton, a man with a tremendous wealth of wisdom and experience that he is gonna share with all of you guys today. Clint is an author, a speaker, transformational leadership coach. He is the founder of an organization called BigBoldBrave, but more than that, he's an IMPACT Player. He is a husband, a father. He is a leader. He's a guy who cares about investing in other people's lives to transform them and make an impact. And today, Clint is gonna be sharing some powerful life-changing insights about navigating tragedy and how to do that well in your marriage. You are not going to want to miss this story. It will shake you to your core and build you up at the same time. If you're new to IMPACT Players, thank you for joining The IMPACT Players community. We are an organization dedicated to inspiring men to be great husbands, fathers, and leaders by equipping them to thrive in the relationships that matter most. We do that in a lot of ways. We offer cohorts and gatherings for men all over the country, resources for men and men's ministries that are looking to grow as husbands, fathers, and leaders. And another way that we do that is through this podcast community. We hope that you'll take some of the lessons and the nuggets from this podcast and implement it into your own life in a way that makes you better equipped to thrive as a husband, father, and leader in the days ahead. So, let's get into the podcast. Jon and I are so glad to welcome you, Clint, thank you for joining us. And please take a moment to just share a little bit of who you are, your marriage, your family, what you're doing now for a living.

Clint Hatton: Okay. Thanks, Warren. Well, first of all, just I want to say thank you to you guys for having me on. I mean, it's a huge honor. What you guys are doing is, it's so needed, it's so powerful. And, we were laughing a little bit about, you know, how to introduce me before we started this interview. And to me, you talked about the most important thing, and I sincerely mean that, and that's being a husband and a father. The rest of it can change over time, and it has over the course of my lifetime. But that's the foundational goal of mine is to be a great husband and a great dad. So honored to be with two guys that also value that so much. So thank you for having me on. As far as what I'm doing now, and we'll talk a little bit more about, you know, some of my past story that led into this, but I do predominantly two different things now. I am a professional speaker, so I do leadership events and workshops, different things like that with different types of companies. One example, I did a leadership event for Starbucks a while back, and some of it's, I don't like to use the word motivational guys because that means to take action, whereas that could be just a simple move that doesn't really gain much. Transformations mean you change.

Warren Mainard: Yeah.

Clint Hatton: And so any talk I do and what we're gonna talk about today with what we're all gonna have to say, hopefully it's something that that gives someone the tools they need to actually make a transformation, not just get excited about doing something right. So anyway, I do that at churches as well. I was a pastor for 17 years up until 2023. And so I still speak in churches. And then I also work with a company called Excellent Cultures, which has actually been around a very long time. They're based outta Seattle, originally, now it's here in McKinney, Texas, but they started almost 40 years ago. And we work with companies anywhere from a startup that's pretty established up to one of our clients is, for example, the president of Toyota. So we got Microsoft guys. So we've worked with a lot of companies, and basically what we help them do is we help them build their culture and leadership development from the top down. So from the CEO, the senior leader, whatever that is, through their system with what we would call a servant leadership model. So those are kind of the two things that I do, but mostly I'm excited to be a husband of 21 years. I have three boys, one that we'll talk about specifically here in a little bit, that I've been very proud of, to father over the years. And then, I love to do this kind of thing too, so let's go.

Warren Mainard: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I think it's so funny, Clint, because like, whenever you kind of meet a guy, I think this is a man thing. Like whenever you meet a man that you really don't know that well, the natural thing is to always kind of start with those top level things, like this is what I do for a living, these are my accomplishments. This is my resume.

Clint Hatton: Totally.

Warren Mainard: All that kind of stuff and that's good. Like, I think it just establishes kind of who you are a little bit and, and where you're coming from. But what we know is that guys all have a deeper story. And you can meet a guy, let's say at a conference or at a business networking event, and you look at that guy and he is sharp, he's polished, he's, he's got it all together, and then you sit down with him over a cup of coffee or you go for a walk with him and all of a sudden kind of the story comes out. And certainly, you know, just a few weeks ago, you and I had a conversation. I was out walking as we were talking, but we were on the phone and as we were sharing, both of our stories kind of just flowed out. And that was when, man, my heart was just captured and honestly broken for you and your story. So you mentioned your three sons, your oldest son's name is Gabriel.

Clint Hatton: Yeah.

Warren Mainard: Let's talk about the Gabriel story because there are guys that I know that when they hear the story, it's going to do something inside of them that is gonna be really powerful. So share a little bit of your story of your firstborn son, Gabriel.

Clint Hatton: Yeah, I'd be glad to. So Gabriel, you know, anybody that's got multiple kids, it doesn't matter if they're boys or girls. In my case, I'm, I just happen to be a boy dad. But, they're all different. They're all valuable. They all have their gifts and their talents and he was no exception. He was super smart from day one. Sometimes too smart, you know, 'cause his communication ability was very strong at a very young age. So, you know, by the time they get, if the guys who aren't there yet, by the time your kids get to, I don't know, 13 to 17, somewhere in there, typically you're gonna have a little bit of pushback verbally on some stuff because they're beginning to think they know stuff, right. When it happens when they're like six, you're like, dude, whoa, whoa, timeout, timeout. It's too early.

Warren Mainard: Yeah. Yeah.

Clint Hatton: But that's kind of how he was. So he was very strong-willed, very opinionated, even from a very early age. But ultimately, you know, just a really good kid. And then what happened and what kinda led to where we're gonna end up in this story is when he was about eight-ish or so, his uncle Danny flies planes. He actually runs a little airport in rural Oklahoma, kind of on the side. It's not what he does for business, but he's got multiple planes. And so one day he went up with him in one of his little aircraft and he just got the bug. I mean, that was it. The minute he got back down, it's like I want to be a pilot. And so he really grabbed a hold of that. And he was definitely goal oriented. He was definitely, you know, very energetic about if there was something he wanted to do, he was gonna do it, but he still ate. So time went on and we didn't think much about it 'cause there was plenty of time in between. But ultimately what happened is by the time he was a freshman in high school, he had decided that, no, this is really something I wanna do. And for us, first of all, that's a daunting thing. I don't know how many listening are gonna, have the background on what it takes to become a licensed pilot, but it's not a cheap hobby, right. It's not pickleball. And so you're talking about in some cases $10,000, $15,000. I know people have spent upwards of 40, $50,000, you know, depending on how they go about it. So we're just like, okay, bud. Well, that's awesome. But we were, you know, pastors at the time and most would know you don't get into that for the eight figure income. So we just told 'em, we'll see what God does. And so, what was crazy was, is and this was all what we really felt like was truly God, you know, answering for him and blessing him for his dream, because even though we couldn't afford it, he ended up finding this club that was like seven minutes from our house at a local airport. And this dude who started this club, he's a little bit of a legend in the aviation industry. I don't know if you guys have ever seen, it was on Discovery. I don't know if it's still on there now, but there's a show called Airplane Repo where these guys go and exactly what it sounds like, they go and fly all over the world, repoing, anywhere from a Piper to a Lear jet, you know, just, and it's a crazy, crazy, crazy show. But Kevin is the founder of this club, and that's a part of what he does. And so anyway, he started this thing for kids, and it's a four year program through high school and into their early 20 something age. So he was able to start learning about just the nuts and bolts side of stuff. And they literally would help rehaul engines and do wiring and paint. And, you know, they had all these different parts and things donated by aviation companies. And so really early on it was just, he was getting exposed to it. And then another thing that was really fortunate, we moved actually from the Seattle area back here to McKinney, where we had lived years ago and didn't even know it, but our school system, our district, actually implemented a four year aviation program in the high school as well. So it was a really unique set up, right? We're just like, alright, God, thank you. You know, this is awesome. And so ultimately where that led was by the time he was 16 years old, that's the, that's when you can start flying. He started to fly. And we didn't have to, dude, we didn't have to pay a dime. Literally, the flight instructors donated their time. Really the only expenditure was the gas, which was, they got it at wholesale because that was also, you know, given to them at wholesale price. And then he earned a thousand dollars scholarship through American Airlines that paid for pretty much all of that. And so, next thing you know, literally before he's got his driver's license, he's, or I should say it this way, he had his driver's permit, but before he was able to drive a car by himself, he jumped into a plane and soloed, which was a weird experience as a parent. So that's Gabriel, it gives you a little bit of an idea. You know, very adventurous, very brave. He had graduated a year early from high school, taught himself how to play guitar. He actually was an amazing photographer. And even though he wasn't technically professional, he got hired to do gigs to do that too. So, you know, it gives you an idea.

Jon Beazley: Wow.

Clint Hatton: Just he was just one of those kids where, I mean, he was, I used to tell him, I'm like, you're, you've done more by the time you were 17 than I did by the time I was probably 35. It was just, that's how things were rolling out for him, you know. And so here he's chasing his dream, everything's just rolling our way. And then he got his, the earliest you can get your actual private pilot's license is 17 years old. So once he turned 17, boom, went, took the test, passed it the first time, did his check rides, boom, became a pilot. Dreams, you know, first dream, check. And he's on his way. And at that time, which a lot of people would recognize this now if they follow the aviation industry at all, we knew there was a lot of change happening. There was gonna be a bunch of pilots that were gonna be retiring. And so it was the sweet spot for a career. So that was the path he was on, through, there was a couple of different routes where he was gonna be able to potentially work for American here in Dallas. So we're just living the dream. He's living the dream. Then September 23rd, 2019, you know, once you're at that stage, it's all about getting hours, you're just flying as much as you can. And that's what he was doing.

Warren Mainard: Yeah.

Clint Hatton: And September 23rd, he had a friend who, in a very strange coincidence, I guess you would say, was in town here in McKinney for a funeral. And she wanted to get back to school. She lived in Arkansas, went to the University of Arkansas, which is just a few hours north of us, and you know, wanted to get back quicker. So her and her mom asked, hey, you know, Gabriel, would you be willing to fly her back home? He's like, oh, of course. So that's what he did. And so he flies her on that evening, back home and then gets, he had some friends that went to the school as well. So he spent just a little bit of time there, and then he jumped back in his plane. And on the return trip, he only got about 20 minutes, and we ended up getting the phone call. And that phone call came in about eight o'clock at night. I was actually walking in from running some errands. I don't even know what I was doing. And, you know, all of us know that look on our wives when they're on the phone or something, their face just, something's not right. You know And so I walk in, I see the look on her face, and I'm thinking, you know what I don't even know what could be going on. And then I hear her, she's talking to Kevin, his mentor, immediately you're just like, oh my gosh, what's, what's going on? So we found out, he disappeared off the radar. We don't know where he is. He's not answering his phone. And so, I won't take you guys through the whole thing, it's just, it's just too long of a night. But it was a night from hell. I mean, there's no other way to describe it.

Jon Beazley: No doubt.

Clint Hatton: The nutshell version is, is there was a lot of confusion. You know, he went down in a very rural area in a little mountainous area, which they said there was no cell phone coverage. So search and rescue were up there for several hours. They're telling us, I, you know, I keep calling the sheriff's department that's in charge of it. They're telling me they don't know anything yet. Meanwhile, we're following it on our phones with local news stations, and they're reporting things on their own to the point where they, even at one point, at about 1:00 AM said, you know, a single fatality. And, we're just like, what's going on? So it, the night was just awful. And then about 3:30 in the morning, we got the official called and found out that a lot of the confusion was not really confusion. They just had a policy because they knew, they knew at 11 o'clock when they found him that he was gone. And, they just needed the coroner to sign off on it. And so, you know, we went through several extra hours of thinking and praying and believing, and declaring and doing all the things that you do when you're believing that your loved one's gonna make it. And then it just didn't turn out to be our story.

Jon Beazley: So when, man I just couldn't imagine. I, by the way, I'm a boy father, dad as well. I have three boys. Gabriel sounds like very much like my son, Adrian.

Clint Hatton: Come on.

Jon Beazley: He's talk, talking back to me, four or five, six, somewhere around there too. So I was hearing your story and I just, I was just picturing because, he's one of those overachievers, really smart when he was very young. And I'm just trying to put myself in your shoes, and I'm thinking like, how do you go from like, how you just described yourself as, you know, like shouting, shouting affirmations.

Clint Hatton: Yeah.

Jon Beazley: Praying that God would come through, whatever you did. Like, how do you navigate something like that? Like, what is a biblical response? And let me couch that a little bit more clearly.

Clint Hatton: Sure.

Jon Beazley: Because a lot of times, like in a church context, like they don't really teach you how to lament and grieve. It's almost not in our vocabulary. It's kind of like, oh, we're sad, but oh, you know, they almost try to spin it redemptively.

Clint Hatton: Yeah.

Jon Beazley: And, you know, when you go through something tragic, you actually just don't want something redemptive at that moment. You really want to feel those feelings and process. Like, how did you...

Clint Hatton: Absolutely.

Jon Beazley: How did you and your wife process that? Because no doubt there are men listening to this.

Clint Hatton: Yeah.

Jon Beazley: They, different scenario, maybe they've lost a child, but they're just like, I don't know how I can continue to believe God in this situation. Like, how did you guys navigate that?

Clint Hatton: Yeah, and that's a great question, Jon. There's a series of events. You know, it's not a, it's not a solely in the moment thing because you're processing everything in real time. And I would even say, and I wrote this in my book, I believe in, by now, you know, by the time I'm talking to you guys, I think I've done 80 interviews in the last year and a half. Many of those have been with licensed therapists and professionals and other people who have lost people. So I have a lot more data to back up what I'm gonna say. But, you know, I really believe the entire first year, I call the 'year of shock and awe' because there's constant things going on. You know, like a birthday rolls around, Christmas rolls around. There's all these little different things that, that keep happening 'cause life doesn't stop, you know.

Jon Beazley: Yeah.

Clint Hatton: So, so it is a process. I don't wanna imply to anybody as I begin to answer your question, that just there's these three steps, and that's what you do. It's not that simple. But I will say, when it, when the word first came in and we knew he was gone, there's really no way to describe it 'cause I had to turn to my bride and tell her. And that was the second most gut wrenching thing I've ever done in my life. The only thing that was harder, and it was harder for different reasons, was his two brothers who were nine and 14 at that time were asleep the whole night. They had no idea what was going on. And, we let them sleep in, you know, we weren't gonna let them, we weren't gonna talk them at 3:30 in the morning. And by that, by the time 3:30 rolled around, actually my wife's mother and my father-in-law were here as well. And so that discussion with them was clearly the most painful thing I ever had. But the first thing that happens is it's just, it's raw emotion, you know. We were devastated and just bawling and snot and heaving and you can't breathe and your chest just feels like it's gonna collapse. And the, there's this just hole. I mean, it's a body, mind, spirit, soul, you know, assault all at once. And so that's the first thing, we just had to allow ourselves to do that. And then what really happened, and I, and I'm gonna try to describe this in a way that is gonna make sense to just about anybody. 'Cause I know not everybody necessarily as a person of faith or a believer, and, you know, so I don't wanna isolate anyone from their story or make them feel any different, but there were some things that happened even earlier in the day. And I'm gonna give you one quick one that I still find super strange. But I think somewhere in the background, God was helping me even when I was in excruciating pain. And what happened was, I was, in those days, I was really into walking. I had to walk like 10 miles a day. I was down on a normal walk that morning. And I had, I think most of us have had something like this. You can call it whatever you want, daydreaming, vision, whatever. But I was just walking along the golf course and all of a sudden I'm just like seeing like this live dream, you know, while I'm walking along. And in it, I was in our house, I'm back in our house, and I was running around frantically and I was looking for the boys 'cause I was gonna take them across the street. We have a very tight neighborhood here. We know our neighbors really well. And I was gonna be taking them over to two of our neighbors that are moms, Margaret and, well, anyway, the names don't matter, but I was gonna take them over there because I had really bad news to give Amarillys, that's my bride, about Gabriel. And then all of a sudden I'm like, back in my walking again. And that's a bizarre experience, right? And any of us who are dads, you know, you can't help the fact that sometimes we just think of bad stuff happening, right? I mean, there's lots of bad stuff in the world. So that's all I chalked it up to. I just thought, okay, nope. Not having that, there's nothing. And so I just prayed, honestly, just a very simple prayer and blessing over him and forgot about it.

Warren Mainard: Yeah.

Clint Hatton: And then it was when the call came in, or excuse me, yeah, that's right. When the call came in and I officially knew he was gone, I remembered that. And I, and I was just thinking, I don't understand what you're doing, God. I don't understand what you're doing, but did that have something to do with this? And this is really in my mind, you know, I'm not sharing this with my wife. So I bring that up because I do feel like there was something going on that, that God was about to help me. And so what happened was we came out of the, just the bawling and all that stuff. And then, you know, as a dad, you do feel like, okay, I'm the leader of this family. I got, I gotta say something. And so I hadn't been thinking about it, I didn't have this plan. I hadn't read a book about it, but literally in the moment, I just said, okay, guys, there's, here's two things. One is, we have two choices on how we're gonna view Gabriel's death. We can choose for the rest of our lives to focus on the tragedy of it, all the things we're not gonna experience with him, all the things we're gonna miss. And if that's our focus, we are gonna be shells of who we are created to be. And then again, it was like, intuitively, spiritually, however you guys wanna reconcile it. And then the next thing that came to me was, and here's the other thing: we're gonna do this as a family. So we, I gave everybody permission that morning that listen, we don't know what grieving is gonna look like. And anybody listening to this, there's no formula. You know, what I'm gonna describe to you today may be very different than what you do. But I said, we don't know what this is gonna look like, so we do know, but here's what we are gonna do. And that is, we're gonna feel every bit of it. We're not gonna fight it. We're not gonna bury it. And so, you know, my boys are nine and 14 in our house, using language is not a thing, not that it never happens, but it's just not a practice for us. But we even told 'em, we said, listen, if you're, if you're upset and you need to cry, you need to cry. If you're angry, you need to be angry. If you're so frustrated that you suddenly feel like you just need to cuss, then you need to know, cuss. And there's no penalty. You know, we just basically said, there's, everything is in play except for one thing. You can't do it alone. And that started with me. So we can kinda launch where you guys want to go from there. But, I just somehow, I just knew in that moment that I needed to be the leader, not just in the strong, here's the strategy, here's the plan, but I also needed to be the leader in I need to grieve well, first. I liken the, I never really thought about it this way before, honestly, until I'm talking to you guys. But, you know, we're on a plane and they're giving you all the, here's how you put a seatbelt on. The mask drops down. And most of us ignore all that, right? But what do they tell you to do? They tell you to put on your own mask first.

Jon Beazley: Yeah.

Clint Hatton: That's really, I think a great way to explain it is I felt like, I know I need to grieve this thing out authentically and honestly. And so that's what we're gonna do. And you guys need to know that we're all gonna do it together.

Jon Beazley: What I don't wanna be like miss here, which I think is so profound, is like the typical reaction, I think from a dad would be strong front grieve alone.

Clint Hatton: Yeah.

Jon Beazley: What you're saying is that you're like, no, no, no, we're not gonna play that, is I'm actually gonna lead in. This is devastating. Let's not pretend that it's not, and let's grieve together. I think that's powerful.

Clint Hatton: Yeah. No, and Jon, that's the thing. You know, again, I didn't know what I was saying really at the end of the day. This, it's just what I felt like I was being led to do. But since, again, I've done an enormous amount of research. I've got friends now that are clinical therapists and stuff like that, and neuroscience and things like that. And we know now there's an enormous amount of evidence out there, science-based studies that burying it is absolutely the worst thing you can do. It's the worst thing you can do for you. And it's the worst, when you have children, it's one of the worst things you can do for your children, because you're teaching them to stuff it.

Jon Beazley: Yes.

Clint Hatton: And we know there's all kinds of, and we don't need to get in the weeds with this, but over time, there's all kinds of psychological and even physical and emotional, baggage and fallout from living that way. So that's a profound question, you guys.

Warren Mainard: And to me, this is really kind of at the crux of what I wanted to try to get, you know, get into today, which is you talked about, you're like, okay, like I just got the worst news of my entire life, and I also have this sense of I need to lead my family through this.

Clint Hatton: Right.

Warren Mainard: And I mean, the wisdom, the insight that it sounds like, you know, the Lord really just kind of imparted to you has been profoundly helpful. But let's kind of just unpack that a little bit because it's not like you gave that one speech and then from that point on, it was like, oh, dad already talked about that one speech. Or my husband already talked about that we don't ever need to, you know, rehash this again. But like, in reality, it's like, how do you, how are you, how did you, kind of find the right tension between being that strong leader, that pillar, that source of strength, that refuge for your wife and your children, and yet also grieving well in a way that gives them permission to grieve, but also gives them hope to keep going? And then were there some kind of outside resources that you personally turned to to get support or to vent your own feelings so that you could come back into the home and be really regulated to lead your family well? So I know that's a lot, but like...

Clint Hatton: Yeah.

Warren Mainard: Just kinda maybe try to grab the heart of that, that tension between leading your family and yet also being emotionally in touch with your own feelings and with those around you.

Clint Hatton: Yeah. Help remind me on the latter part of that question as far as just outside help 'cause there was ways that we involved that later on, but I got a couple of, you know, quick examples to help answer your question because it happened in real time, right. You don't get to say, okay, timeout, it was Tuesday morning, we still had work, the boys still had school. You know, life didn't just stop and it doesn't for anybody. And so really, circumstances just began to unfold like they do in real time. That I don't wanna say push, push is probably too strong of a word, but you can't avoid it. We couldn't just lock ourselves in a house, so we just really took it one small chunk of the day at a time, is really what it boiled down to. When he passed away due to this plane crash, we didn't even realize until a week later when we did his celebration service. And that's part of the answer too, you know, that the whole, that was, how are we gonna honor him and how are we gonna do this? And so there's a lot of decisions that somebody has to make. And so we're doing all this stuff, but he had, you know, so many friends that were in aviation, he knew kids that were football players, and we ended up finding out, he actually had personal contact information with the VP of an aviation company. I mean, he had like these old salty, pilot dudes from all over the country that he knew because of Kevin that we didn't even know he knew. So there was a lot going on. And the very first thing was we knew that we had to serve others in the early stage of the tragedy. And I'm saying it that way very intentionally. I'm talking that first week, because even though our pain was truly greater than anybody else's, nobody can compare their pain to ours, but we weren't the only ones. And it was devastating. And so one of the very first things that happened is we got a call the next morning there, actually, there was two. One was the, the young lady who was his really good friend that he had taken to Arkansas, she was already starting to suffer from survivor syndrome. Her and her mother both apparently were telling people that they assumed that we absolutely hated them and blamed them. It was their fault. And, you know, all this. So within an hour or two of find that out, they were in our living room.

Warren Mainard: Yeah.

Clint Hatton: And we were talking to them and, you know, helping them understand that he's, he was living his dream and of course he decided he wanted to do it, and you, it's not your fault and all those things. And we prayed over them, and of course, we're all crying and we're hugging. And so my boys are witnessing that, right? They're seeing us care for people in our pain. They're seeing us encourage other people in our pain, and then they're seeing us weep in our own pain. So that was one quick example where my boys are watching it happen in real time, right?

Warren Mainard: Yeah.

Clint Hatton: And then later that night, you know, we found out that the club was already talking about maybe shutting down the entire program because of it. And, couldn't have any of that. You know, Gabriel never wanted that. And so that evening we were out at the hangar, there was probably, I don't know, 25 of the kids are involved in the program. A whole bunch of the parents who were normally not at the hangar we're all gathered there. And we went and we kind of held a little meeting with them there and just encouraged 'em and told them though, listen, you know, Gabriel was living his dream. You're living your dream, and he would never want you to stop. We don't want you to stop. We a hundred percent support you guys. And again, it was kind of the same thing. It was another real time example of our boys in particular, just seeing us just kind of work this thing out as we go. And it caught really quickly, you know, because like Joel, my middle, this is all the same day, we asked him, you know, what do you wanna do? Because he was a freshman, freshman football's on a Wednesday, so that's just the next day. And it was their homecoming game. And we're like do you want to go back to school? It's your choice if you don't wanna go back to school, we can keep you out for a week or whatever we need to do. And, and he just immediately said, I'm going. I'm going to school. I'm going today, and I'm gonna play for my brother. So I'm like, you know, so it's a little, that was a little heavy. And so we ended up going together. I went with him, we met with the principal. We met with some grief counselors, just kind of set up some parameters to make sure that if he had a really rough moment, he would know what he could do and where he could go. But then Wednesday night, here we are, we're sitting in the stands of a freshman football game. And I gotta tell you, it's a weird freaking experience. There's part of you that's going, should I be here?

Warren Mainard: What am I doing here? Yeah.

Jon Beazley: Yeah.

Clint Hatton: I mean, really in real time. And I, and I'm looking at, you know, anybody that, we're a six a football program. The only reason I'm bringing that up is at the freshman level, there is still no difference. There's normally about 30 people at a freshman football game. I mean, there's just not a big crowd, right? And we go in and word had gotten out around town, and some of the other people that knew us knew Joel had dedicated the game. So there was like an extra hundred people in the crowd with signs and all this stuff. And it's just like, oh my God, what are we doing? And as a dad, and Jon, this gets into part of what you're asking me. I was in real time, I was thinking, gosh, I don't know if I made a good decision here. What if he, what if he doesn't play well? What if he, he was a running back. I should point that out. So what if he doesn't play well? What if he has a rotten game? Oh my gosh, what am I, you know. So I was fighting all that in real time. But he had made the decision, and it was really important for us to allow them...

Jon Beazley: Yeah.

Clint Hatton: ...to make some decisions along the way on how they were going to grieve this out.

Jon Beazley: Yes.

Clint Hatton: So I'm just, I'm in between literally tears, grieving less than 48 hours, Gabriel's still gone and trying to watch my son play football, you know.

Jon Beazley: Wow.

Clint Hatton: And truly, it's like storybook. He's a running back. He's a play maker. You know, we knew he had ability and he'd already made lots of plays earlier in the year, but the coach didn't put him in right away. I still this day, don't even know if that was by design or not, but were a few plays into being on offense. And they put him in and he's on about the 40, they're on about the 42 yard line. And the very first play, they pitch him the ball on a sweep. And it looks like there's no way he's gonna, he's gonna gain maybe five yards, you know, they've got the angle, and somehow he just kicks on this. I mean, he is fast kid, but he kicked on these afterburners, and he takes off down the sideline and he streaks on his first carry for a 42 yard touchdown. And then he bobbles the ball at the five and almost lost it. And I mean, everybody's going nuts. And I'm like half totally proud, can't believe what I just saw. And then there's this other side that no, you know, just believes Gabriel's watching. And it's just like this crazy blend of reality and emotion and all of these things happening. And so, later on, we ended up having a great conversation after that. And, and it was a really powerful experience for Joel. And it became the same thing for Liam, who he was a martial artist at nine. And so that's what he chose. And we all chose to be what we call big bold brave. So that became a family mantra long before it was a company or a book. But anyway, so I don't know where we want to go with it now, but it was...

Jon Beazley: I do wanna make a comment.

Clint Hatton: Yeah, please do.

Jon Beazley: Just an observation, a couple things. First, like I, I'm actually kind of like fighting back tears hearing the story. Just like, so powerful. I could literally see him running across the field, bobbling the ball at the end, and, but just the, hopefully this doesn't sound in any way like offensive, but there's this kind of beauty that's emerged from feeling intense pain and joy at the same time. And that's what you were describing. It's like, I don't even know how to put these into words, but you, intense joy, intense pain. I was thinking about this because I just read a book by a psychologist, his name is Scott Symington. And he wrote about anxiety and also trauma. And he said, and it was interesting you did this with your family. He said, ways to move past is by first giving yourself the anchor of healthy distractions. And he says, healthy is going to a distraction that's actually gonna help you, not harm you. So you're not going in like, just eating bad stuff or doing drugs or doing alcohol or something like that. But you're like, if you can move towards life in the midst of the trauma, then you're actually saying that this doesn't have control over me, even though I'm still feeling it. I'm gonna move towards life and I'm gonna acknowledge this. It's not like you don't spend time acknowledging it. And I was like, Hey, that's kind of what you guys did. Yeah. You acknowledge it, you felt it, you didn't play around it, but you moved towards life and saying, we're gonna continue to move forward with, you know, taking control of life. But then he said, there's the anchor of loving action and not just being, it's easy to become self-absorbed when you're anxious or you going through something traumatic and your kids saw you moving towards life, serving people, and how that played about a healing process that no doubt that you still feel.

Clint Hatton: Yeah. Oh, we're still in it. Really. Yeah.

Jon Beazley: But you were saying that I was just like, this is just beautiful picture here of God's grace.

Warren Mainard: Yeah.

Jon Beazley: But here, in fortitude. Go ahead, Warren.

Warren Mainard: No, no. I mean, that really, you know, really resonates with me and something that I was gonna gonna ask. 'Cause you know, that story, I mean, to be in that football game less than 48 hours after your son died, like, I mean, I'll be honest, there are people that can't comprehend that and that would even be like, I can't believe that they would do that. You know, like that, just that whatever judgmental thought. And without going too deep into some of our story, but we had in our family, a young man who was like a son to us, we thought that he was actually gonna become our son-in-law. And has, had been a part of our life for almost 10 years. And, you know, in a tragic turn of events, he died of cancer at the beginning of 2023. So we're only 18 months removed from his passing. And we're not even obviously biological parents, you know, we're not his biological family. But, but even in spite of that, just because he was so dear to us, there are times where we've said to one another, like do you ever feel guilty about enjoying a moment in life knowing that Brady is not going to get to enjoy this? Knowing that that loved one that that died too soon is not able to enjoy this? I know what that feeling is like from this position. I can only imagine what some of those conversations have been like for you, for your wife, for your boys. Like what is that kind of like and have you gained any kind of wisdom or insight about how to answer those questions? Either the ones that come from within or the ones that come from without?

Clint Hatton: Yeah, man, you both said some really great stuff there. And Jon that was not even close to offensive. You were 100% dead on. That's the best description I could even give of what you experience 'cause it, it's not either or. That's the thing. Most people think you're experiencing either the pain or the joy, and there really is a space in certain circumstances where it's both. But, I think, you know, the way I would answer that, I wanna say something I haven't said yet. Anybody listening to this needs to know that we are not perfect people and we haven't done anything I described perfectly. We've had to recalibrate and remind ourselves, Hey, you didn't talk for a couple weeks. You let yourself get kind of isolated. And, you know, so there's recalibration, there's accountability and so there's a lot of that. My middle son, Joel, to be very candid, and this is something I have not shared a lot in a lot of the early podcasts for very obvious reasons, it'll come to play now. But he's in a great space now. But he really struggled. He really did. You know, he played, I shouldn't say play. He went along with our internal process as a family in terms of talking about things openly. So he could do that. But he did really struggle, Jon with, you know, why even care? Here's Gabriel, who was bigger than life to him, first of all. And we all knew was bound to be a CEO of some major corporation. I mean, he is just, you know, he was just, he excelled, right? And he is like, why even try? And so he had a lot of destructive behavior, especially during high school. And there would be peaks where his parents would be going, okay, I think he's on track. He seems like he's doing good. And then boom, the bottom would drop out and something would happen. And so, you know, this is not a clean, easy process. I don't want anybody to be under the impression that we had, like you guys said earlier, made a, this incredible speech on the morning of, and then, hey, we were just good. It's not like that at all. but I will say the intention and what you decide is what's gonna mold what you recalibrate to. And so I didn't use those words earlier, Jon, when you were saying you, you know, you were choosing life. You were choosing life. But that's exactly what we said. We're going to choose to live the way Gabriel lived. We're not gonna choose death. So just that decision, as time rolled on and different things would happen, and we'd be grieving because it's his birthday or he's got friends that now are pilots and we're seeing them become pilots. We get on an aircraft. And a lot of these pilots are young now. They're about the age that he would be right now, you know. There are triggers everywhere.

Jon Beazley: Yes.

Clint Hatton: But that intention, that whatever comes our way, we're gonna process it. We're gonna feel through it, and ultimately we're gonna choose life. We're gonna choose to do everything in our power to live the life that we were intended to live. And that's how we're gonna honor Gabriel. And certainly, you know, for us, how we're gonna honor God, which comes first of course. But that's really how we treat Gabriel, is that we're gonna honor him by living that way. So even though it wasn't perfect, and even though there have been missteps and bad things still happen. And it's not the only thing that's happened to us since he passed away. Joel actually less than two years later, hit a median on one of our major highways at 75 miles an hour, flipped around five times, the car was disintegrated. And he somehow walked out with one scratch. I mean, literally crawled out of, if I showed you guys a picture, you go, no, nobody gets out of that, you know. The EMTs, the cops are all like, he shouldn't be here. There's no way. How do you process that?

Jon Beazley: Yeah.

Clint Hatton: Seriously, because I'm telling you, were we grateful he didn't pass away? Oh, a hundred percent. We were so grateful. But at the same time, we came that close to losing another one, you know. And so that in and of itself created some internal emotional and mental and spiritual tension where we had to work through those things. So it, life doesn't stop. Things continue to happen. But what you ultimately decide are gonna be your family values and your intention and how you're going to live your life out has to be strong enough to where you can recalibrate when things aren't going your way. And if there's a more helpful question that you wanna ask, I don't know if I'm making sense with that. I'm trying to really help some.

Jon Beazley: No, this is, this is rich.

Clint Hatton: Okay.

Jon Beazley: Have you, even up to this point, 'cause you have this obviously ministry, it's powerful. I'm sure it's, it'd be easy for you, or I shouldn't say easy. Like the tendency would be like, you have to put on a strong front. Now look at your, the, I forget the title of your ministry. What is it? Big Brave.

Clint Hatton: Oh, BigBoldBrave. Yeah.

Jon Beazley: BigBoldBrave. Thank you. So you have this, but like, just honestly, do you ever just sit back and actually really struggle in your own faith journey even today? How would you...?

Clint Hatton: Sure. Absolutely. As a matter of fact, so the very first gesture, big bold brave, I won't tell you guys a whole story 'cause we wanna focus on what's helpful for people. And not just my story, but in the morning after it became national news because of what happened. And we were approached by Fox Dallas and they wanted to do a story on it. And I told them no. And then they, the lady who happened to be a believer as well, the reporter, she says, well, I just want you to think about it because here's the reality. We have been assigned to this story. We have to tell the story tonight. If you'll let me, you can tell it your way. You can say anything about Gabriel you want to say, and you can even include, you know, your faith, whatever you wanna talk about. And it'll be a story about his life, but if you don't do it with us. And she was very kind about this, it's gonna be a report on his death. So as a family, we talked and we decided to do the interview. Guys, I don't remember consciously, I don't remember a single thing about that interview. The only reason why I even have any picture of it at all is 'cause we have a video of it. But somewhere in that interview, at the end of it, I don't even remember saying it. I said, he lived his life big, bold, and brave. So after that got played back and we heard it. That's one thing that we grabbed as a family. We have this mantra now. So whenever we're feeling a certain kind of way and feeling defeated or losing our faith, okay, big, bold, brave. That helped a little bit. Then I got a tattoo, and you guys aren't gonna be able to see it. At that point. I was 54 years old. I don't know how everybody feels about, you know, tattoos. I never had a reason to get one, but I decided, and it, and there's a story behind it and doesn't really translate very well on a computer. So I won't try to do that. But I decided I'm having this story created on my arm. And the reason why I put it on there is 'cause I knew I need something every single day in my face.

Jon Beazley: Yes.

Clint Hatton: That's going to remind me. This is the intention that I set for myself and for my family. And so that's been helpful. You know, there's been days where I've been challenged, but the truth here, your question, Jon, is absolutely, of course. You know, and I'll say, even I'll say it even this far, 'cause we get asked all the time, did you ever get mad at God? And, you know, did you ever stop talking to him or whatever? Yes. Yes. But here's the craziest thing. And to me, I could give a lot of testimonies of the goodness of God in my personal life. I mean, my story before I ever met my wife, I have a crazy story as it is, you know. But the one thing that I think has stood out to me, and I just shared this actually with the church last week, more than anything, is there was a period of time in the first, after the first year or two, whatever it was, where I wasn't reading my Bible the way I usually did. I wasn't praying. And I'm not saying I never did, it's just, it wasn't my normal routine. I wasn't journaling. I wasn't, I mean, I had my back maybe not totally back to God, but I was turning to the side, you know. And the most amazing thing to me about the goodness of God is even when I knew, knew that I was ignoring him and, and not wanting to talk to him, there was never a time. And I mean that a hundred percent sincerely. There was never a time where I ever felt like he wasn't there. Ever. To this day. So that's a huge part.

Jon Beazley: He was there. You were just confused,

Clint Hatton: Oh, a hundred percent. Just, just trying to live through this thing, you know. Yeah.

Jon Beazley: I haven't shared much of my story and I won't take too long to do this 'cause we're getting towards the end. But, my wife and I had a son who was born with medical complexity. And we haven't lost it. Well, we had a miscarriage, but we haven't lost a child in the sense that you have lost Gabriel. But, we've come really close to losing, his name is William. We've come close to losing him. When he was really little, he had some, he was born with golden heart syndrome. He has one eye and one ear. He's the cutest little guy, but had an upper airway problem. So he has a trach.

Clint Hatton: Okay.

Jon Beazley: And, there was one night he wasn't breathing very well and, we're gonna do a trach change. He pulled out his trach and he seized up. We couldn't get the other trach in. And his whole neck area filled up with blood.

Clint Hatton: Oh, wow.

Jon Beazley: And I, like, I screamed. I was just like, I mean, just yelled out like, what, what's happening? And I thought we lost him. We, once he like went limp and fainted.

Clint Hatton: Yeah.

Jon Beazley: Put the plate back in and did some, did some air and he came back. But we've had probably a dozen times like that that we thought we just lost him. You know, we saved him. He's alive. He's alive. And there's so many times I've relived that trauma like over and over again.

Clint Hatton: Yeah.

Jon Beazley: And I wanna tell you, man, there are times where I've just, like I, you're talking about kind of turning halfway towards God a little bit, there's times where I was just like, I don't get you, I do not get what you're doing 'cause, we were in church planting, serving the Lord, felt like we're sacrificing all, you know how you tell yourself the story. Like, I'm doing so much for you. What in the world are you trying to rip my world apart?

Clint Hatton: Yeah.

Jon Beazley: It's not the world that's the issue. I feel like it's, you are the issue right now. And I just went through that whole, like that whole narrative and the reason why I was talking about this like kind of unique beauty of pain and joy coexisting. 'Cause we get triggered, there's so many times where something happens and I'll be sitting there looking at my son, like, will he make it to his eighth birthday?

Clint Hatton: Sure.

Jon Beazley: I don't know. And, but there's something about this pain that has created a deeper intimacy with God than I can explain. But I still have moments where I get a surge of like, oh, anger, frustration.

Clint Hatton: Yeah.

Jon Beazley: But there's a beauty there that I would never wanna like not have with God. Does that make sense? I don't know if you could relate.

Clint Hatton: No, no. A hundred, a hundred percent. We've been through some other things that are a little bit similar. You know, Liam was born three months early at one pound, 14 ounces, and was hospitalized for two and a half months.

Jon Beazley: Oh my word.

Clint Hatton: And so he, you know, there was multiple times during that process where you don't know, they stopped breathing 'cause their brain and their lungs are not connected yet. Anyway, a lot of what you said, I don't wanna get into other stories, but, you know, everything you just said is so true. I mean, we're real human beings.

Jon Beazley: Right.

Clint Hatton: And so I think sometimes people expect you're either this, and when we're talking about people of faith, you're either this super believer who's made of steel and everything bounces off of them, or you're so weak that one thing happens. And now you know, you're in a ditch somewhere on meth, right. And the truth is it's, there's a middle ground with all of it, you know, and you can feel those things simultaneously. And I a hundred percent agree with what you said, that, listen and I wanna be very clear about this 'cause this is a question I do get asked often. I a hundred percent know God did not do this to us, and we didn't have to lose Gabriel to gain that kind of a perspective. I don't believe God does that at all. And to me, it's very scripturally clear. So would I choose another way to learn these lessons? Oh, a hundred percent I'd do it today. But what you just said is very true. And we know we don't get 'em back on this side, but we've learned to find that beauty in just remembering who he was, what he did. And one of the things that I think, I, you didn't use this word, but I hear it in what you're saying is, is gratitude. Gratitude is a powerful force. I personally think it's a tangible substance. I think it's a real thing. It's not just a word. And there's something about, for me, even being grateful about the 17 and eight months that I did have with him, you know, that has been a real game changer as well, that's allowed me to have pain and joy.

Warren Mainard: Wow.

Jon Beazley: Well stated. Yeah.

Warren Mainard: Yeah. Hey, Clint. you know, one of the things that I observe about podcasts is that, typically there's a host and a guest and they're talking with one another, and our listeners are listening to our conversation. But I wanna ask you to do something, I wanna ask you to speak directly to the listener and maybe just take a minute to just share whatever is on your heart for that man that may be in the midst of a tragedy or a difficult situation in his own life. If you were sitting down with him right now face to face, and you had a minute to just share your heart with him, what would you tell him?

Clint Hatton: Yeah. Well, if I was sitting with someone, which I've done many times since, I would ask him first just, man, how are you feeling? I mean, some of what I'm gonna say is gonna sound super simple. I would just say, Hey man, how are you feeling? Be real with how you're feeling. And you've gotta embrace that, and you've gotta allow that for a period of time. That's the first step. Because Jon said something a little bit ago that I wanna point out, you were talking about, you know, just feeling that this type of PTSD right? Is what you were describing. Well, we know now with modern science and brain research and all this stuff, that trauma does get trapped physically in our body. That's another reason why one of the interesting studies I read about is tears. Do you know, the chemical makeup in your tears are completely different depending on what generated it? So a tear of joy has a completely different chemical makeup than a tear of grief. And grief is toxic if it stays in you. So wherever you are, my friend, you've got to feel the pain. You've got to let it out. You've gotta be honest. You know, you've gotta just be willing to just feel some of that and not just push it down. To me, that's number one. Then the second most important thing I would say to somebody who's really in the fight right now, and Warren, you'd asked the question earlier, we hadn't quite gotten to it, I'll just weave it in here, is you can't, you can't be an island. You can't do this on your own. You, we were created to need other people. And so I have had other men in my life that I could go and have really real conversations with. And when I'm saying real, real conversations, I'm not talking about going and finding somebody to gimme all the answers or for them to tell me what to do. I'm talking about the kind of friend where I can sit there and have a conversation with him. And if I'm pissed off, I can be pissed off. And he is not gonna try and talk me out of it. Or if I'm, if I'm tearing up and I'm crying, he's not gonna just try and say, oh, okay, come on, dude. It's okay. It's okay. Don't cry, don't cry. Whatever it is I'm talking about that you need a man or men in your life that you can just go be real with. And so if you don't naturally have that in your life, man, there's a lot of good people out there. Go find a really great clinical therapist. You know, we're believers, of the three of us, there's a lot of really great clinical therapists that know what they're doing, that also are people of faith. And so, if that's a concern of yours, go to someone like that. Or, or maybe it's your pastor. Maybe it's your former football coach that you trust. You know who, whoever. But to me, those are two primary things that you must do as soon as possible and do consistently, because life goes on, my friend. It really does. And you're gonna get through this. And, and if you don't know God yet, I mean, it's the greatest game changer my life, bar none. You know, he's carried me through things that I never imagined I would get through. So I would certainly say, turn to the Lord. But you've gotta know, there's a phrase that we say sometimes, this too shall pass. The emotions will pass. The trauma won't have to devastate the rest of your life. If you make that choice, just choose to love yourself enough and the people around you, because there's other people, whether you know it or not, are waiting on you right now to be the fullness of who you are supposed to be. And just make a decision that I, I'm gonna live again. I'm gonna choose life like Jon said, and I'm gonna take a step and I'm gonna pull other people in to help me do that.

Warren Mainard: Wow. Wow, Clint, this has been so powerful, and I knew it would be, I've been looking forward to sharing this time with you because I just am so in awe and admiration for the way that you've been able to carry that tension that we've talked about throughout this whole podcast of being that big, bold, brave man. And yet at the same time being, a child of God dependent on his heavenly Father, who is being held in his hand. And I think that's a beautiful thing when you can learn how to do both those things well, and you definitely modeled that. As we wrap up, how can guys who might wanna follow up with you, or contact you in any regard related to, the work that you do, or the story that you tell? What's the best way for people to reach out to you?

Clint Hatton: Yeah. I think the two quickest ways and easiest ways now, one would be just to go to the website, which is bigboldbrave.us. Yes, everybody, I know it's actually u-s, but I say 'us' because I think collaboration is a game changer, right? And then, if you're a business guy, if you're someone that's in business and you're interested in learning a little bit more about what I do with that link, my LinkedIn profile is probably the best way to go for that.

Warren Mainard: Okay And we'll certainly, you know, tag you in the, these posts on LinkedIn and encourage guys to reach out to you and check you out. Guys, this has been such a great time for me. Not every podcast is quite so heavy, but think that there's just something powerful about when men can get into this kind of stuff and talk about it together. And I hope maybe even some husbands might let their wives, listen to this podcast and it might open up some dialogue for them to talk through some of these things together. But if you are a man who is looking to get connected with a band of brothers who can walk with you through difficult seasons, highs and lows, successes and failures, please reach out to us at impactplayers.org wherever you are. We wanna help, provide a space for IMPACT Players to minister to you and to provide a band of brothers for you and the guys around you. So for, Jon Beazley and myself, Clint, thank you so much for being on this podcast. And we truly hope we get a chance to reconnect with you again on the pod and continue this dialogue of what does it look like to be a man of God and a child of God all at the same time. And, thank you again. We're truly grateful for this time.

Clint Hatton: It was my honor. Thank you guys.

Jon Beazley: Thanks, Clint.

Clint Hatton: Thank you, Jon.