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Are you just getting through the day… or intentionally raising a good man? In this episode, Nathaniel Turner, author of Raising Supaman, talks about how to raise boys with purpose—without adding pressure or perfection to your already full plate. Nate shares the intentional framework he and his wife used to guide their son as a “Man in Training,” built around three core principles: intellectual ambition, global and cultural awareness, and a commitment to something greater than yourself. It’s a practical, mindset-shifting approach to raising thoughtful, capable young men.
We also explore one simple but powerful tool—writing letters to your child—and how it can strengthen connection, build confidence, and create a lasting legacy of guidance and love. For moms, this conversation offers both encouragement and a gentle challenge, especially when it comes to creating space for fathers and male role models to show up more intentionally. If you’re ready to move from reactive parenting to something more purposeful, this episode will give you ideas you can start using right away.
Most parents are raising children. Very few are intentionally shaping the kind of adults those children will become—and that’s where Nathaniel A. Turner comes in. Known as the “Humanity Propulsion Engineer,” Nathaniel is an author, financial expert, and the voice behind Raising Supaman. He helps families approach parenting with greater purpose through his Life Template Method—a practical framework that shifts the question from What should my child do? to Who are we raising, and how do we guide that outcome?
Nathaniel first applied this approach in his own home, raising a multilingual son who trained internationally in professional soccer and earned admission to dozens of universities, along with fully funded graduate opportunities. Today, through the League of Extraordinary Parents, he helps families focus on three key areas—intellectual ambition, global and cultural awareness, and a commitment to something greater than oneself—offering a clear, practical path to raising capable, purpose-driven young adults.
The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Consult with a qualified professional for specific guidance.
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There are moments in parenting when you stop and think, “Am I just getting through the day or am I doing what I can to raise a good human? What kind of man will my son grow into?”
Today’s conversation is about shifting from reactive parenting to more intentional parenting without adding pressure or perfection to an already full plate. My guest today, Nathaniel Turner, calls himself a humanity propulsion engineer. He believes we shouldn’t leave our children’s futures to chance—that we can be far more intentional in how we guide them.
During my pre-interview conversations with Nate, I was intrigued by his story and the intentional choices he and his wife made while raising their son. In his book, Raising Supaman, Nate refers to his son as an MIT—a Man in Training. Nate’s commitment to guiding and shaping his son is inspiring, and I think many of you—the MOB, the Mothers of Boys—will appreciate the actionable ways moms can help create space for fathers to show up more intentionally and build stronger connections with their sons.
Welcome, Nate.
Nate Turner: Hey, thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to this conversation.
Suzy Shaw: Well, me too. And I first want to say thank you for sending me your books. You have a wide variety of books—from children’s books to Raising Supaman to fixing the school system.
Nate Turner: My diatribe.
Suzy Shaw: Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your wife and your family?
Nate Turner: Sure. I am the son of Tommy L. and Gladys T. Turner, and I’m the brother of Kimberly, and the husband of LaTonya and the father—most notably, most importantly to me—of Naeem. And I’m a product of Gary, Indiana. That’s how I describe who I am—by probably the way people remember me when I’m no more.
Suzy Shaw: So how did you come up with the term humanity propulsion engineer? And can you explain your sort of building blocks for the foundation for your son?
Nate Turner: Sure. So, full disclosure, I’m not an engineer. Naeem, my son, is an engineer. And when I first suggested to him that I was going to call myself a humanity propulsion engineer, he reminded me (as only a son can) that I have no engineering training. But when I explained it to him, he said, “I’ll allow it.”
So it’s really simple. We’ll take the words apart. Humanity—everyone understands humanity. Human beings are hopefully our compassion or empathy. Propulsion means to move forward or go upward, which I would say in a positive fashion. And engineering—our tools, techniques, and strategies to create something.
So what I think of as a humanity propulsion engineer is that that’s something we all are. We all come to the planet, hopefully wanting to treat our fellow humans with empathy and compassion, with grace and mercy. We should all come to the planet hoping that we can leave it better when we depart than it was when we arrived. And I think we can do that when we are equipped with tools, techniques, and strategies to do that very thing.
So that’s where I came up with it.
Suzy Shaw: Right. Amen.
Nate Turner: So that’s that. And I think you asked me a second question.
Right—what do we do for our son? Go ahead, I’m sorry.
Suzy Shaw: Right. So some of the building blocks—and I’ll follow it up—that you and your wife seemed to have a concrete, unified approach in raising your son. And the outcomes are impressive. So what were some of the intentional choices you made early in his life?
Nate Turner: Well, I think the first thing that LaTonya and I both did is that we recognized, as the old quote goes, the trees and fruit. We both recognized that we were going to be a tree and we were going to be creating some fruit. And the first thing that she and I needed to do was assess who we were as trees.
That meant taking a look at how we were developed, how we were cultivated, and recognizing that there were some errors in the way that we were cultivated. In order not to do the same thing to an unborn child or to a child moving forward, we needed to make sure that we addressed those things.
So that, for me, is the most important thing—and I’m still striving to do it each day—is to find a way to be better today than I was yesterday. That’s the very first thing.
When we realized—which we have—what are called ACEs, which are Adverse Childhood Experiences that the CDC says there are 10 that are most notable—when we realized that I had 8 of those 10 and she had 7 of those 10, and combined we had 9 of those 10, we knew that we needed a roadmap, if you will—a template.
What we did was, coincidentally, I was graduating from law school and I was unemployed. One of the things I was most concerned with was being like my father—one of those things I did not want to happen. But I was unemployed, like my father was a great deal of the time during my childhood.
And I was like, oh my God, I’m going to be just like my father. I don’t want to be like him.
So what could I have done differently that I wouldn’t have been unemployed? And I realized, well, maybe if I go into a different law school… well, what law school could you have gone to that you probably would be gainfully employed? Well, Harvard.
And why aren’t you at Harvard? Until you start to backtrack and ask yourself these questions, and then you finally get back and realize that at the very beginning, nobody had a plan for your life so that you could attend Harvard.
So we wrote Harvard instead—for an application for an unborn child. And we used Harvard’s application, which asked for three primary things. Students in 1994, of course, do well academically. But the second and third items surprised us. The second one was they were looking for world citizens. And the third item is they were looking for people who care for something greater than themselves.
And we thought—wow—that’s a very unique thing. Never looked at an academic admissions application that way.
So we used those three elements to then create what we now call the life template:
So those are the three elements we used for every aspect of his life.
Suzy Shaw: And the humanitarian and the global citizen one—did that require volunteering? I mean, how did you do that?
Nate Turner: So in full disclosure, in the beginning, we didn’t… everything we did was a little bit like he was a guinea pig and we were testing it, trying to figure it out.
Suzy Shaw: I will say—that’s for all of us. That’s not just for you. I mean, especially if you have two kids, you understand the first one was your guinea pig.
Nate Turner: We were reading a lot of things, and we pretty much understood the intellectual piece. Although we came across an educational tool called backward design and realized, hey, this might be a really useful way to do this.
Backward design has three elements also. If you think of three circles—one larger outside circle—it would say familiarity. And we thought, okay, so what we should do is make sure the child is familiar with as many things as we could possibly make the child familiar with. Because we realized that folks typically like children who know a lot of stuff—they call them precocious. And so, okay, that’s a good thing.
Then inside that big circle was a slightly smaller circle, and that circle was called mastery. We realized that there are certain things the child had to master—reading, writing, math, and science, certainly—but also civility, respect for oneself, etc. So we put that as a second element.
And then the third, inside the very smallest circle, was the core. We wanted to make sure that whoever that child was, that child would be known by everyone they met as that very person at the core of their being. So that was our approach.
And again, there was some—I don’t know if there was so much failure—but there was some iterating. Not much pivoting, but iterating from where we started. Because we thought being a global citizen was the answer.
Well, they said world citizen, but we realized it was more than just language. So first it was like, can we just teach a child to speak another language? And then we realized that may not be enough. So yeah, we just kept iterating.
Suzy Shaw: So when we first talked, you described to me the motivation really behind your book, which is Raising Supaman—pronounce it for me.
Nate Turner: Supaman. So think of soup, like a bowl (like Superman without the “R”) because I don’t want to get sued.
Suzy Shaw: Yes. So I just found it very, very inspiring. So can you explain to me?
Nate Turner: Sure.
Suzy Shaw: And it became an inspiration for your son to learn how to read and where this—the foundation of this book.
Nate Turner: Sure. So first, I was just writing notes. When I learned I was to be a father, I started writing notes about what it was I would hope for a child. And honestly, those notes were a lot less about the child and a lot about me—the things I wanted the child to achieve.
I never shared the notes with my son.
But one day, as a two-year-old, we walked to the mailbox and he says, “Hey Daddy, where’s my mail?”
And I said, “Hey man, you don’t have any mail.”
But he said, “But Daddy, I want mail.”
And I said, “But I have nothing but bills and junk mail. You don’t want any of this.”
And he said, “But Daddy, I want mail.”
So I said, okay, okay—I’ve got to write you.
So I went to Target and I bought some greeting cards and postcards. And I would go to the office and write on these greeting cards and postcards. And what I found, Suzy, was that I just didn’t have enough space—because the things from my own childhood, as I was writing to my son, were coming out of me.
I thought I was over them—and I might have been over them—but I wasn’t healed from them. And I’m now writing these postcards to this child, and it’s not even legible because I’m trying to say so much.
When I would get home, he would say, “Daddy, I got mail today.” And eventually, “Daddy, read my mail.”
And I said, “Hey man, look—I’m not going to keep writing to you and reading to you.”
And he said, “Well, Daddy, teach me to read.”
And so that was the start—to teach him to read.
Suzy Shaw: So fast forward—you continue this practice of writing him letters throughout his life. And now he is a young man. So he’s a young man, and he goes away as part of a sports experience. Can you explain that?
Nate Turner: Yeah—let’s say not “goes away” like prison. (Sports.)
He went to Brazil. He was starting the second semester of his junior year of high school. We were in Vegas—and we don’t gamble—so we’re like, what are we going to do? We’d seen all the shows.
So we decided to drive out to the Grand Canyon. And he and I are running along the edge of the canyon, and LaTonya is behind us, yelling and screaming at us to get away from the edge. Naeem and I had just finished reading The Alchemist, and I’d read Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek.
I said to him, “How do you feel right now?”
He said, “This is great.”
I said, “Yeah—because everything good in life happens on the edge.”
He said, “Absolutely. I’m with you, Daddy. And that’s why after I finish this semester, I’m not going back to high school. You need to get me out of here.”
I said, “You’re not doing what?”
“I’m not going back to high school. This is a waste of time. I have a dream. You taught me about dreaming—I need to go chase my dream.” So his dream was to leave the country and play soccer abroad. So that meant his father had to figure out how to get him out there.
So I did. I found a virtual assistant, and he found us 11 clubs across the globe that offered him opportunities to come in for tryouts. We decided his favorite clubs were in Brazil. So he flew to Brazil—and decided, “I’m good. I’m going to stay.”
I had written him probably hundreds of letters. But the truth is, when you write a small child letters, you don’t know where they’re all going to end up. So we didn’t have all of them. The ones I could find, I gathered them, put them in a binder, and gave them to him when I was there.
LaTonya told me to stay in Brazil for a few days—we didn’t know how things were going to go. So I went off to Rio by myself for a few days—because I say every man should go to Rio on his own. Not really true, but it sounds good.
And then she calls me and says, “He’s not doing well.”
So I go back. I catch a flight to São Paulo, then take a cab to the camp—it cost $415, just so people know how much I loved him. The driver spoke Portuguese, no English. I speak English, no Portuguese. It’s getting dark. I’m getting nervous. He doesn’t know where he’s going.
But we finally get there.
And I say, “Are you okay?”
He says, “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve got a question for you.”
I said, “I’ve got a question for you too—why did I spend $415 to get back here?”
He said, “Did you put the letters in any particular order?”
I said, “No.”
He said, “I reread the first three letters. And I remembered my purpose. I’m going to be fine. But when I come home, we’re going to publish these.”
I said, “Why? They’re yours.”
He said, “Because other people need to know what I know.”
And I said, “What’s that?”
“When you tell me I can do something—not only do I know I can do it—I know what’s going to happen.”
So about 18 months later, he returned. He had a pretty severe concussion and decided he was done with that journey. But he did all the work to get that book published.
Suzy Shaw: So the book is set up really interestingly—very fascinating, inspiring chapter names. Then there’s a letter from you to your son, and then at the end there are questions, which I also think are very interesting.
Some of the chapters are, you know, the first one is As a Man Thinketh. Here’s another one: It’s Not Where You Start, But Where You Finish. One of the chapters that I really enjoyed was one word that can destroy everything you hope to achieve.
And you had him, in the beginning of this book—which I recognize was not a fun experience for you—but you had to memorize this quote. And so you asked him to memorize this quote:
“Excuses are the tools of the incompetent used to build monuments of nothingness. Those who use excuses are seldom good for anything else.”
So just tell us a little bit about what you hope readers of your book will walk away with and how you structured it.
Nate Turner: Yeah. So again, in full disclosure, a child told me to publish the book.
So the unique relationship that we had—or that we have—is that I’d asked Naeem, as an 11-year-old—he asked me for an iPhone, and I asked him to write me a business proposal. And he said, “But Daddy, you’re the lawyer.” I said, “Yeah, but I don’t want the phone—you do.”
So it is those kinds of experiences that when now this young man is 18, he knows exactly what to do. He formed the contract to find the person to illustrate the book cover. He’s the person who finds the editor. It is he and the editor who decide that there should be questions at the end of each chapter.
I wish I could take credit for that—I can’t. I can only take credit for having written the letters.
What did I hope would happen with the letters? I just hoped initially that they would serve as a reference point for him when I messed it up—because I was certain that I was going to be like my father and his father before him.
I was certain there would be a day my son would talk about me the same way I talked about my father—as someone who failed him. And I just wanted him to have some evidence that I actually did care, that I actually tried, that I actually loved him.
Because I don’t have any of that with my father, and my father didn’t have it with his father.
So that was all I intended to do initially.
As I moved forward, I realized that the letters were a great way for parents to have a dialogue with a child—but also a great way to investigate yourself.
You can’t write words to someone without reading what you wrote. And when you write, you can do so with a kind of patience and intentionality that you don’t always have when you speak.
So that gave me a chance to really think about what I wanted to say to him—especially a small child who can read your facial expressions and tone but may not hear the actual words.
Writing was great in that regard. Writing, I would also say to parents, is a great tool because most of us—the only legacy we’ll leave…
I know people like to talk about generational wealth—and that’s great if you can do it—but the majority of people are not going to leave their children generational wealth.
But what you might be able to leave is wealth in words. Wealth in wisdom.
And so that’s what I thought. I don’t know what I’ll leave him financially, but I do know that if I don’t leave him words that help him at various points in his life—like I wish I had…
When I became a husband, I had no reference point. My parents were married 28 years. I’ve now been married 33. But I didn’t have someone to go to and say, “Hey Dad, what do you do at this point?”
So I thought the letters could serve in that way.
Suzy Shaw: So, Nate, I feel as though our kids are about the same age, our marriages are about the same age—we’re around the same age. And our generation had the mom as the primary person doing the day-to-day parenting, at least in my household.
My dad would swoop in towards the end of the day. He was very invested in my brother’s sports, but there was definitely a division of labor that I did not want in my marriage. I wanted more of a partnership.
But having said that, there’s a reality to it. I call it in my book “the give job”—something has to give when somebody gets sick or something changes. And that was usually my job.
So I’m curious about your marriage and your family and how you handled that—and do you have any practical suggestions for making it a collaborative effort?
Nate Turner: As a husband and father, the most important job for me has always been him.
I’m a financial advisor. I’ve had a financial planning firm since 1997. But every client I’ve had knows Naeem. He’s sat in living rooms, in offices—he’s part of it. They all understood that no matter what, I’m going to do what’s best for him—even if it meant making less money than my peers. That didn’t matter to me. What mattered was being for my child—because my dad was never for me.
In relation to my wife, I wanted her to have the opportunity to go as far as she wanted. She earned her master’s, then her PhD. She became a principal, then a dean. Some might say she surpassed me—and that’s perfectly fine. I wanted her to break through whatever ceiling she wanted.
I just wanted to be present as a father and husband. So I’m probably a little different than my peers. But my biggest aspiration is to be—as Mufasa said to Simba—pals with my son. And to give my wife the opportunity to thrive and crack through the glass ceiling if that’s what she wants to do.
Suzy Shaw: Well, your collaboration is inspiring. I appreciate the way you support your wife and your son.
For moms—who are primarily our audience—what do you want them to know about being more intentional? And if there’s one thing they could start this week, what would it be?
Nate Turner: Well, I would say sometimes—to moms—as a father… get out of the way.
I know that sounds harsh, so let me unpack it. Mothers are primarily the caregivers, but sometimes they set young men up to become the kind of man they wouldn’t want to marry.
Suzy Shaw: So yes—unpack that.
Nate Turner: Mothers call their sons boys—but they don’t want to be married to a boy. And when they are married to a man who acts like a boy, they’re unhappy.
So it begins with how we refer to young men. I say I’m raising a man in training.
Mothers are also modeling for men. We say men marry their mothers—so who do you want your son to marry?
Someone who cleans up after him? Who expects nothing of him? Who says “boys will be boys”? That boy becomes a man who is not responsible.
So sometimes you have to step back and let a man help a young man become a man.
Suzy Shaw: I do believe that male role models—fathers ideally, but if not, other men—are really important. And even during the development of our sons, there were times when my husband wasn’t the best person to connect, so we brought in uncles or others.
So I understand what you’re saying about enabling—that moms should not enable their sons to grow into someone that they wouldn’t want as a partner. Right?
And I was aware of that—avoiding raising a “man child.” I even called my approach “highly mediocre parenting”—lowering the bar so they had to become independent. And by the time they left home, they had those life skills.
But many moms struggle with how to encourage and inspire the father to be more involved. Any suggestions?
Nate Turner: I don’t know how to motivate another person. But I do say to fathers—one day, the child you’re not investing in may be the one you need to invest in you.
Relationships are like bank accounts. If you don’t make deposits, there’s no return.
Suzy Shaw: But I want to say that I think it’s very tangible for moms to encourage something like what you’ve done here (the book Raising Supaman) and that maybe it’s a little bit easier to put the wisdom down on a piece of paper than verbalizing it. Would you agree?
Nate Turner: I would. Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, because you’re going to get a chance to think through it. And you’re going to get a chance to say hopefully without so much emotion or maybe if you are emotionless, maybe you’ll have some emotion in your writing. But I think the way you’ll want to say will be more like what you would hope it to be long term than what you might say in the short term.
Suzy Shaw: Well, Naeem’s reaction to your words to want to publish it and share it with the rest of the world speaks for itself.
Nate Turner: Yeah. He took the words and put them on one of the letters is dreams lift us up. And sometimes he’s pursued happiness and he put it on the top of his cap and gown for undergraduate. And then he’s used it to teach other students stuff. He stops like, you see, I have to teach, I’m teaching this class and I’m teaching about dreaming.
Okay. All right. Well, cool. Using your dad’s words. So that’s pretty good.
Suzy Shaw: That’s awesome.
So, Nate, I ask all of our guests at the end of the podcast to share a motto or a quote or something that somebody might say to themself in that nervous parenting time. Did you have one that you said to yourself?
Nate Turner: I say it all the time now. I remind myself that the most important word in the human language for me is who. And I say it like this:
You’re not who you think you are.
You’re not who you believe others think you are.
You’re exactly who those you choose being relationship know you as being.
And so as a father, I’d say to people this way, Suzy says, who am I in terms of father? I say, I’m the greatest father in the history of the world. There are two fathers that might equal me. And the first one had a son named Jesus. And the second one has something named Simba.
And then I would say, they would say, well, whoa, whoa, Nate, that’s pretty audacious. I say, yes. And so what does your son think? I said, my son thinks the same thing. Ask him, he’s the greatest father in the history of the world.
And then you might ask my son who I was. And he might say, he’s okay.
And then the question then is, then who am I? And then I’m just okay. And I think that’s an important distinction fathers should have. Fathers should ask their children routinely. Your parents should ask their children routinely. Who am I? Who do you see I am? Because it is the child that gets to call the person mom or dad. It is not mom or dad that gets to call themselves mom or dad. So we should ask the people to whom we who give us these reverential titles if we’re living up to those words.
Suzy Shaw Right. Beautiful.
So where should people and parents go for more information?
Nate Turner: Yeah, we have a not-for-profit now called the League of Extraordinary Parents. So I would say that’s probably the best place to go. The website is pretty simple at lxtrap.com. The League of Extraordinary Parents.
And right now we’re running an initiative on literacy, improving the reading levels. And we’re doing some stuff here in Indiana because Indiana has a recent law that if a child can’t read at the third-grade level by the third grade, they cannot get promoted to the fourth grade. So that’s where you can find.
Suzy Shaw: Love it. Love it. Thank you.
Nate Turner: Thank you. Appreciate it.
Suzy Shaw: If this episode meant something to you, please follow and share the Mothers of Boys Survival Guide podcast on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Sharing helps other moms discover the show. Be kind to yourself moms.
