No! Don't go in there! Daddy's working.
Jonathan: You're listening to the only show in the galaxy for dadpreneurs who want to have it all. Each week, you'll see how you can have harmony in the four pillars of purpose: family, faith, fitness and finances.
I'm going to change that intro. I'm getting bored of that interest, so maybe I'll come up with something new this year for 2020.
This is Daddy. I am working and you are listening. Welcome back to another edition of the show. Thank you for being here. And, today, I have a very special guest and I'm going to embarrass him a little bit. This is my podcast son, right here. This is the guy that I've watched come up and I love his progress. The dude is now a dad, so he's qualified to be here. [01:08.2]
Scotty, what is up my man?
Scott: Hey. How are you doing? Thank you for having me on the show.
Jonathan: What is that? Is that your radio voice? Are you giving me your podcast voice?
Scott: No, man. This is how I sound now apparently after spending all of yesterday dusting and priming. I have a very nice gruff voice going on, so I can't complain. This is how I woke up. I'm going to roll with it.
Jonathan: Yes, sir. What's interesting is that when we met, I don't even know how many years ago, you were just coming off being more angsty and hardcore, and now you sound so mellow. I almost don't recognize you, man. Is that what dadhood does to you?
Scott: I think that's what maturity does to you. I found out that I could still be angsty, but it's a lot of energy that I'd rather put elsewhere.
Jonathan: You've got priorities now with a wife, a house, a kid. Yeah, I bet you're using energy every which way. [02:04.9]
Scott: Yeah, and angst takes a lot of energy. Anger takes a lot of energy. And just having that bad attitude, that takes a lot of energy to keep up that front and that that rebel edge. So, these days I'm just conserving it where I can and spending it where it matters, and it turns out being angsty and edgy is not it.
Jonathan: My goodness. You have come a long way, my brother. I want to explore some of that journey with you. I guess I didn't talk about this. I think most people out there in the world focus on competition rather than creation, and it turns out that, because I know I've tried to refer to you whenever I could, I'm pretty sure you and I do something similar. Are you not in the podcast production space?
Scott: I'm in the podcast production space and now I'm also in the fatherhood podcasting space, so we do the same thing in essence. Just we do it in very different ways. [03:06.5]
Jonathan: Yeah, so most people would be like, Competition! Competitors! And I'm like, Cooperation! Creation! Let's make something beautiful together. That's the space I'm in these days, man.
Man, let's see where I want to start with this. All right, I'm curious—how did you get into the podcasting space?
Scott: I've always kind of been interested in it to some degree. When I was like 15 years old, I got a job on the radio, and so I was cutting tracks for the radio station and recording, and being a weekend sports and weather personality, and stuff like that.
It's funny because my first editing gig I ever cut my teeth on was a gospel hour every Sunday, so that was kind of fun. I learned everything I could about Adobe Audition while I was working for them, and then I started a band a few years later and we recorded all of our own stuff. And what do you know? Adobe audition came in handy again. [04:01.2]
Fast forward, worked a bunch of jobs they didn't like, kept ending up in leadership positions because apparently employers saw something in me that I didn't see and couldn't stand it. Every time I got the keys to a store, man, I quit my job after a while. I know what it was. It was exactly that. It was that angsty, defiant “I can do your job better than you. I'm out” type of personality.
I eventually ended up looking for some sort of business I could do, and it just happened that podcasting took all of my past experience and tied it all up into a bow. Since then, I have been doing the production element. I've grown a team. I've laid off a team. I've raised prices. I've tried different things. Basically, took business and just ran with it and I've been having a lot of fun with it. Podcasting just happens to be the thing that I'm best at that a lot of people need.
Jonathan: Yeah. We met many, many years ago, and it might've even been before podcasting when it was cool. Let’s talk a little bit about it because I never get to talk about it. It's so meta, right, talking podcasting on a podcast? [05:10.5]
But how have you seen the landscape change? I remember you had your own show. You had me on your show. We became friends. So much has changed since then. What changes have you seen in the last five or seven years, or however long it's been?
Scott: I've seen celebrities jump onto the podcasting bandwagon and push it in the direction of being a more widely-accepted and viable media source for people. I've seen YouTubers start to use podcasting in support of their channels. I've seen people make boatloads on the back end of their podcasts.
Pretty much what I've seen in the last five years is that podcasting continuously becomes more and more of a force to be reckoned with as it works to use SERP radio as the original audio. It's more widely available in vehicles. It's more widely available everywhere. The audience for podcasts have become more educated, more of the action-takers. [06:13.5]
And there are stats to back all this up, by the way. This isn't just me talking. But, yeah, what it's becoming is a more and more powerful medium because people can listen to it and they don't have to focus on it, and people are using it to back information-based businesses very largely and successfully. It’s just becoming more and more of a saturated market, but, at the same time, more and more of a market where the cream can rise to the top because it's still under-saturated compared to let's say blogging or YouTube videos and all that stuff.
Jonathan: Yeah. Actually, I don’t know where it was that I was reading it, but I saw a stat that iTunes has something like 800,000 shows in it. Here’s a question and I'd love your take on this. How do you stand out in a sea of 800,000 shows? How does an individual podcast or stand out? [07:08.8]
Scott: The thing I think most people need to understand, first and foremost, is who you're trying to stand out to, because if you're just trying to get out there and get a number-one show and compete with everyone for the vast market, by and large, I hope you have a big point in doing so because it seems like a lot of energy to get there. It's all in your marketing. It's all on your exposure. It's all on your visibility.
But if you're looking to get out to a market to sell to, let's say, or a market to truly bond with, then all you need is to know a lot about that market and to be able to push it to the correct people. In the case of fathership or Daddy's working, you know who the people you're trying to reach are and you know where to find them, and then that's where you put your stuff, so that you build up a loyal following who will spread your stuff for you.
Jonathan: That's an interesting concept and I've never really been good at that, and I think you're way, way better at it. How do you get people spreading your stuff? [08:05.3]
Scott: I personally feel, and this comes from the music background, when we started a band, we needed to make people feel like they were involved in the band. We needed to make them feel excited, so we came straight down to, What does the logo look like? Is it something sexy that people would want to push? What is the content within the show? Is it something that people will latch onto? How is the sound quality? Is it something people would be proud of? Is it a good experience? And just the better you make your product and the more you know about the psychology of the person you're making it for.
For me, for instance, with fathership, when I grew up, I was a big history buff, and a lot of my friends who are dads are also big history buffs. We're also geeks and nerds. We played fantasy games and stuff like that growing up. So, I made fathership with the sword and shield, and the whole thing has this whole knight feel to it, so that those guys who grew up wishing there were knights in shining armor, saving people, and they want their small little farmhouse with their family, they listen to my show and they're like, Oh man, this is everything I want. [09:04.7]
So, it's a lot of creating that, and then when they feel like they're part of it, when they're proud of it, when they feel very invested in it, and it's helping them and they're getting results from it, they will then go and share it with the next person who is struggling—with the caveat that as long as you ask.
People will do nothing until you ask them to. By even just saying, Hey guys, put this in the hands of one man you know who needs help or put this in the hands of one entrepreneur who needs to find balance with their family life, or whatever, if you prompt people to do it, they will be more likely to do it.
Jonathan: That's my problem. I never ask.
Scott: You have to.
Jonathan: Yeah, I have a problem with sounding weak, but maybe it's not weak. We're trying to help people and we're actually doing them a disservice if we're not getting it out there. I appreciate that reminder.
How many podcasts have you had now? Because the one that I was on with you is gone. Then I'm pretty sure there was Pirate Bay or something similar. [10:05.6]
Scott: Podcast Bay, yeah.
Jonathan: Podcast Bay, not Pirate Bay. I've been at Disney too long. I'm in Orlando. Okay, Podcast Bay. How many podcasts have you had and why do you keep changing? Is it growth? Is it that you outgrow it? What happens?
Scott: We started with The Edge-ucation Podcast back in 2015, and at the same time, I got on a live radio show on the air for a company called Bold Radio. At the time, I was doing The Edge-ucation Podcast and I was doing Down & Dirty.
Down & Dirty was about getting the real scoop on people. So, we talked to transgender people. We talked to swingers. We talked to dominatrixes. We talked to all kinds of cool people to figure out just exactly like what it was. What’s the deal? Why are you doing it? Why is it important to you to be doing this? And a lot of cool stuff happened on that show.
The Edge-ucation Podcast was kind of there to dissect whether or not formal education was the viable option for everyone, and so we talked to a bunch of people who went that route and a bunch of people who didn't. [11:03.1]
We found a lot of really cool trends, in that people who were numbers people or people who were gifted in trades. They tend to lean towards college as a great route, but the creatives, artists and all that tend to flock the other way and say, Get out there and explore. And entrepreneurs just had no business with school at all. They were like, I would have started a business when I was 10. We noticed some things.
But once that started to get old, my cohost on The Edge-ucation Podcast had three kids at the time. He has four now and he was working a few jobs, and he started getting tired. We started falling behind. It became more of a job than fun. We had enough jobs, so we retired that.
But then, at the time, I picked up podcast production as just a job to do, and so I grew my business, and I was always around it and I felt like if I was going to be a podcast producer, I should have a show about podcasting. It felt kind of like hypocrisy not to be slinging podcast tips. [12:06.0]
I did that for three years, but it never filled me up, man. Podcast Bay, a fun show, but it never made me feel like I was satisfying any kind of purpose or helping anyone beyond getting them past their first XYZ number of listeners or getting them to make their first dollar. It all felt really superficial and almost like vanity. And I was having a baby and we were going through a lot of lifetime stuff, so I turned the volume down on that and eventually just let it fizzle out.
It did well. It supported my business and my marketing for three years. And it was never hurting while I was doing it. I will say that. It was a great pillar to support what I was doing, but it was empty for me. It was just about the money and I didn't want to do it.
I went a long time without a podcast. I started Almost Easy, which got picked up by radio really quick and that's why I did. It was just to give local people a chance to hear from people who are outside of our tiny little world and to be inspired by it. [13:06.0]
That went for I think 13 episodes on the radio. After that I just laid low for a bit, until I started looking around and seeing issues with the way households are being run in the modern era. A lot of guys are still perpetual teenagers playing Xbox all day and a lot of a lot of ladies are mad at their husbands because they're not pulling their weight. A lot of guys are struggling and they want help, but they don't know where to start and they're dealing with a lot of things.
I started to feel like I needed a fight, a cause, and so I started waging a war on passive parenting and inactive dads, and the proverbial deadbeats, so to speak. I decided that fathership was going to be it. I was going to help guys be the dads that they imagined that they would be, instead of the guys who are struggling to fill the role.
And so, this one started ticking all the boxes, man. It's fun. It's got purpose. It reunited me with a lot of my old friends, including my old cohost from The Edge-ucation Podcast. The whole thing has come full circle and it feels like I'm doing the right thing now. [14:10.3]
The only reason I was hesitant was because I didn't want to be just another daddy blogger or just another daddy YouTube. I wanted to do something really special, so we started focusing on the man behind the father instead of the father himself.
Jonathan: All right, so I'm going to dig deeper into this because I find it fascinating. What was your relationship with your dad like growing up?
Scott: Fairly non-existent. He was out of my life by the time I was two years old, and then he would come back in here and there for holidays and things like that, but he was always very inconsistent. When I did get to know him a little better when I was in high school, I figured out that he wasn't necessarily a person that I felt secure to be around.
Then, as an adult, he came back into my life for a while, but he wanted to shot call and tell me what to do, and I found that the emotional foundation wasn't laid, so there was a lot of conflict. [15:02.5]
Finally, just recently, I've decided that now is not the time. I've got to keep my family kind of protected from that kind of conflict and drama, so I've cut ties for now, with hopes that he can work on himself and get to a point of understanding that there's a certain way you have to carry yourself if you want people to welcome you with open arms into their lives.
That’s where we're at right now. It has been turbulent, to say the least.
Jonathan: I'm curious. Do you think that that relationship contributed to your angstiness, your edginess as a young man and growing up?
Scott: A hundred percent. That and my mother's second husband was a military man, and he was very big on structure and discipline, and obeying the letter of the law. I found the combination was an absolute perfect storm. It was fire and gasoline. Yeah, it definitely contributed to the attitude, but also to a lot of the positive things that I have, too, while it worked. Angst is one of those things where, if properly applied, it can get you really far, but you need to figure out when to get rid of it, too. [16:14.6]
Jonathan: Talk to me about that. Look, we may have talked about it on The Edge-ucation Podcast, but I was a little angsty when I was young and I'm not anymore. Maybe I am still a little bit. How do you realize it's there? Right, it takes one to know one. How do you first get the awareness that this isn't serving me and then what is it that you do to say, Hey, I’ve got to make a change or I need to do something different?
Scott: Where I noticed it was helpful was I've always had this, man, insurmountable and indomitable drive to just prove everybody wrong, to prove everybody that I could do anything and that I wasn't a quitter. I would never turn my back on anything. I would never run on anything. I would never flake on anything. [17:04.9]
Jonathan: Okay, I'm going to challenge you since you said that.
Scott: Do it.
Jonathan: I want to see you have a baby. You birth one.
Scott: You know what? If I could, I would try, man. I would. I would definitely do it, just to see if I could.
Jonathan: I believe you.
Scott: And I would probably be in the fetal position, crying for nine months straight until I had it, but I would try. I'm serious. I would, yeah.
But, no, I became a contender. And, again, like you mentioned, everything was competition. If I set foot anywhere, I had to be the best damn thing there. And if I wasn't, I would bully myself until I was, which is probably not the kindest, gentlest approach, but it was effective for me. A lot of the mentors that I chose in life were very zero-B.S., bully types, too. Again, I attribute that to what worked on me when I was kid.
But what ended up just happening is that I noticed that anytime that angst, that attitude and drive, was applied to a pursuit or a purpose, it would yield positive results, but the results would kind of have a dirty quality about them, like I got them out of anger, and so there was always a little bit of anger attached to it. [18:18.4]
But also what ended up happening was any time that I applied that angst to a personal relationship, the relationship would crumble. I started to realize that when it came to matters of the heart, matters of other people's emotions, matters that involved other people at all, angst, attitude and anger were not the place. But when it came to pursuits, as long as I knew, as long as I could channel it and use the drive to get where I was going, without letting it spoil the end result for me, that's when I realized it was a very powerful tool to have in your belt, because when you want to prove everyone [wrong], when spite is your driver and spite is your motivator, it can be a very, very powerful tool. [19:00.7]
Jonathan: Wow. That is fascinating, and it resonates with me, obviously. How do you get it under control then? You said you had mentors, that you had help. How do you say, All right, I’ve got to really channel this in the right direction and cut the edge of this off, so that I'm not blowing everything up? What do you do to get it under control?
Scott: It was actually my wife who brought it up. I firmly believe that, if a man chooses the right woman, he will be eternally blessed. And my wife has a way of seeing me for what I am and not necessarily what I portray, and so what she would see is me doing all these things out of a place of panic or out of a place of fear, or out of a place of judgment.
I'd be scared that the bills wouldn't get paid, so I'd work really, really, really hard, even though we were never at risk of the bills not being paid. Or I would be like so scared to be perceived as a bad dad that I would go absolutely ham and burn myself out.
She started to point out that there were just these areas where maybe my drivers could be coming from healthier places and they didn't always have to be coming from such negative places anymore. [20:10.6]
At first, I resisted it, as we all do. Someone is asking you to reevaluate who you believe yourself to be as a person, and my identity was a very angry one. I kind of had to sit back and reevaluate, Why am I so pissed off all the time? Can't this be turned into a positive thing?
And the more I thought, of course, the more my entire world unraveled behind the scenes, and my emotional, spiritual and everything that you go through when you really sit down and examine who you are and how you've been behaving, it started to bring me to a place where I knew I had to get it under control or I was going to sabotage myself and ruin everything I thought I wanted for what I want for right this instant.
That was a very powerful realization and it was like, Do you really want to sacrifice your home, your child, your wife, your family and your relationship with everyone you have for that next level of success or that next thing you want? [21:10.2]
I had to be honest with myself, and the life I had envisioned in my head was not worth losing everything that I had built, and that's when the anger, that anxious pursuit of everything started to fade away.
Jonathan: I'm with you and that old saying that behind every great man, there's a great woman.
…
Guess what? Time is up for this week. I know you were just getting into that and I don't blame you because it was just getting good. But we're trying to keep these episodes under a half-hour, so we split it up into two. We'll be back next week with Part 2 of this interview. Make sure you tune in then.
And if you love what you're hearing, why not share this episode with someone who will also love it.
Thank you. Daddy's out. [22:06.7]
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