Nobody showed me how to be a father.

My dad was gone by the time I was three. By the time I became one, I had no blueprint - only the memory of what was missing, and five men who stepped in when they didn't have to.

What I learned from them - and from the years I spent getting it wrong before I got it right - is that fatherhood is not a feeling. It is not presence alone. It is not providing a roof and showing up at the games. It is a framework. Eight pillars that hold a man upright when everything else tries to pull him down.

I call it the SHEPHERD Framework.

_Built to Father i_s for four men: the father who is present but knows something is missing. The absent father who wants to find his way back. The fatherless man who is about to become a father himself and has no idea where to start. The man who had a great father and does not want what he received to end with him.

This book will not flatter you. It will not tell you that you are doing fine. It will tell you the truth - and then give you something to build with.

S - Spiritual Leader