Occupation: President of Bob Brooks School
Wife: Laura
Children: Leyton, 14, and Nate, 11
Hobbies: Bike riding, golfing, and coaching kids basketball

As president of Bob Brooks School, Brent Lancaster spends his .days shaping education and empowering others to build better futures. Beyond the office, his most important roles are husband, father, and coach. Between school drop off, studio sessions, basketball practices, and family time, Brent shares how fatherhood has influenced his leadership and values, and why presence, positivity, and patience matter most.

WHAT DOES A NORMAL DAY LOOK LIKE FOR YOU?
BRENT: Anytime I get a chance to take my kids to school, I do. I’ll take the kids to school and go to the office. [At work,] we do a lot of live video stream education, so sometimes it’s going into our studio, teaching all day, then immediately leaving there to either coach or attend a practice, or take someone to a dance. We’ll do that until it ends, and then we pick up and do it all again.

WHAT FIRST SPARKED YOUR PASSION FOR TEACHING?
BRENT: I started in the real estate business. Most people get into the real estate business and it’s a second career; they’ve hit some sort of life event, whether they’ve retired, there’s a death, a divorce. Some of it’s good events, some of it’s bad events, but typically they come to you when they’re looking for a better life. So to be able to be on the ground floor of watching someone completely transition out of one phase of their life and into the next phase of their life, that’s the part that hooked me. I didn’t realize that was something that was even possible. To see people come in the door one way and leave the door another way, it’s awesome.

HOW HAS FATHERHOOD CHANGED THE WAY YOU APPROACH YOUR CAREER AND LEADERSHIP?
BRENT: It has changed my perspective. My career has changed the way I approach being a father, but also being a father changed the way I approach the career. When you’re young and career focused, nothing else matters, and then all of a sudden your kids come along, and that’s the only thing that matters. From a parenting standpoint, you learn patience and how to use your words correctly.

WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST REWARDING PART OF COACHING?
BRENT: When you start looking at a roster of kids, there are all kinds of different personalities that you’re having to manage. The things that come out of boys’ and girls’ mouths are unbelievable. It’s hilarious. It really has given me happiness with all of it. It’s fun watching them succeed. It’s fun watching them at the beginning of the season and they don’t know what they’re doing, and at the end of the season, they’re a team.

YOUR SCHEDULE INCLUDES A LOT OF TRAVEL. HOW DO YOU STAY PRESENT AND CONNECTED WITH FAMILY?
BRENT: I don’t use technology as much as I should when I’m gone. I try to make the moments that I’m here the best moments. I’m a big fan of taking my kids to school every day. It’s a small amount of time, but it’s the time that I get with them. I try to make do with the time that we have that’s available. My general rule is any time I can sleep in my own bed, I do. Whether that means waking up at three o’clock in the morning and going to travel or coming home at three o’clock in the morning so I can take them to school the next day, anytime I get the opportunity to sleep in my own bed, I do it.

WHAT VALUES ARE MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU AND LAURA AS YOU’RE RAISING YOUR KIDDOS, AND HOW DO YOU TRY TO MODEL THOSE VALUES?
BRENT: We’re members of the church, members of Parkview, and faith is first. When you start talking about faith modeling, it’s always difficult, but we do our best to live by that. My whole goal in parenting is to try and raise kids that are nice human beings. There are all kinds of goals that you have for them, but ultimately, if they can become adults and just be nice human beings, I feel like we try and play a role in that.

HOW DO YOU TALK WITH YOUR KIDS ABOUT WORK, SUCCESS, AND FAILURE?
BRENT: I grew up in a working class family. I had a great childhood, but ultimately, you always want your kids to have better than yourself. You provide as much as you can and you want to set them up for as much success as possible. The hard part is sometimes that life gets in the way and they have to work for it. So we try to teach the work. I don’t know how well we’re doing with that sometimes, but they’re getting to the ages where you’re not given everything. There’s a scoreboard and there are wins and losses. You have to learn how to win and you have to learn how to lose. You have to learn that sometimes people don’t practice and yet they’re still better than you, but you end up working hard. The more that you can practice and get better, the more the end result tends to be a positive one. You hate to see your kids fail, but that’s part of life. So you try and be as positive as you can, and hopefully they learn from their failures.

WHAT’S SOMETHING YOUR CHILDREN HAVE TAUGHT YOU?
BRENT: Patience is the easy answer. I’m very structured and routine oriented. I like having a plan. I like having a day-to-day goal. Nothing makes me happier than you sending me a calendar invite to know when it’s going to happen and that sort of thing. Kids aren’t that way. They have helped break in some of that “go with the flow” mentality. I’m not always great with that, but when they want to go do something, it’s let’s just go do it. Let’s go and figure it out and see what we can do. That’s what they’ve taught me: Sometimes life isn’t about schedules and routines.

DO YOU HAVE ANY FAMILY TRADITIONS?
BRENT: We like to travel as a family. Typically around Thanksgiving, we leave just the four of us and go somewhere where we get out of Louisiana and travel. It’s a fun tradition that I enjoy.

IF YOU COULD GO BACK AND TALK TO YOURSELF A WEEK BEFORE YOU BECAME A DAD, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY?
BRENT: You don’t have to have all the answers. Sometimes they don’t know that I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s probably the best. The best example is that your kids have no idea, particularly when they’re babies. They have no idea that you have no idea how to parent. So give yourself some grace and enjoy the ride because it goes by pretty fast. Take more pictures. I’d probably say one thing I don’t do is take pictures. I have memories in my head, but I would probably tell myself to take more pictures, too.

DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR OTHER DADS?
BRENT: Be as encouraging and as positive as you can, because kids respond to positivity. Kids respond to encouragement, and the more that we can encourage kids and not set them up for unrealistic expectations or, set them up for what we want them to be, and just encourage them to go along their way, that’s probably the best advice that I could give. I don’t always follow it, but parent them with a positive attitude. Also, find a good partner. It’s very hard to do this alone, so having a good partner and having that support is super helpful.

Rapid-Fire Questions
Favorite date night…dinner anywhere.
One word that best describes your family…cohesive.
Favorite movies or television shows…Ted Lasso and any Star Wars film.
Favorite food…cheeseburger.