All Pro Dad, Mark Merrill

All Pro Dad, by Mark Merrill, founder and President of Family First, opens with this quote from Chuck Noll, "Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else."  This book tells you how to do those ordinary things, of being a dad, better than anyone else. 

Merrill lays out seven essentials required to be a hero to your kids:

1. Makeup
2. Mindset
3. Motive
4. Method
5. Model
6. Message
7. Master

Merrill, not only details these 7 essentials, but he artfully walks the reader through practical guidance on how to improve in these areas.  Each chapter ends with a "huddle up" section, these are questions that a father can discuss with his children to gauge where he is at in these seven essentials. 

The book includes many quotes and conversations with sports figures, and leadership personalities, that make this an attractive read to the male demographic. 

The strongest part of, All Pro Dad, is the fact that, the author, Mark Merrill, does not speak to the reader from a  hightened, lofty, expert position.  He is very free in describing his own shortcomings in the seven essentials, even as he was writing the book.  Often times I feel like I have valuable advice to pass on, but I shouldn't because I don't always "get it right".  I appreciate the authors openness and honesty in this material.

This is a book that I look forward to sharing with all the fathers that I do life with.