No! Don't go in there! Daddy's working.
Jonathan: Yes, yes, y'all. It is another edition of the Daddy's Working podcast. If you were listening last week, then you heard Part 1 of the interview and I left you hanging. But we're here, and we're ready to rock and roll. So, let's dive back into Part 2 of the interview.
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And that old saying, right behind every great man, there's a great woman. Where do I want to go with this? But, first, let's just talk about your woman here. I've always been around you and watched you. It seemed to me like you were one day Scott, and then the next day you were married Scott. It happened pretty quickly. You go out to a cabin. You get off the grid and you come back married. What happened there? [01:03.3]
Scott: This girl and I have been best friends at a distance for almost a decade, and she finally gave me my shot after I got off my butt drunk one night and told her how I felt, finally, after seven years of just being there and coaching her through crummy relationships. Finally, we were both single and I got really drunk, and I was like, I want to be the guy this time. I want to be the person who holds you when you're upset. I went to this big, apparently heartfelt speech. I don't remember it.
Jonathan: Denial.
Scott: I woke up to this long text that said, “Don't read this till you're sober,” and so I read through and it was her basically saying that she felt for me, too, and it was this big long thing. So, we got together and it went fast, man. We moved in together. Within a year we were married. Within another year we had a baby on the way and a house.
We're on Year 3 and we own a house outright. I'm a month away from owning my car outright. The business has been paying our bills. We knew that marriage and mortgage was it for us, not rent and retail jobs. We knew what we were after. [02:11.9]
She's a stay-at-home mom. She's doing a phenomenal job and I'm trying to build a business that's scalable this time because my first one wasn't, because we're learning lessons, man. We're going through life.
And I don't know, I had the benefit of marrying who, I would say, is my best female friend and I feel like that has been a very big difference-maker for me. It wasn't easy and it took a lot of guts, and she challenges me every single day because apparently I'm someone who's very worth challenging. And you know what? I owe a lot of my growth to that, so I'm not complaining at all. Plus, she's gorgeous. I cannot complain. She's a beautiful woman.
Jonathan: That’s a fact.
Scott: And she makes beautiful babies, so I really cannot complain there.
Jonathan: Nice. So, talk to me a little bit about that. I find that to be a common thing. You said she challenges you. I’ve got two parts to that. 1) How does she challenge you? And 2) how do you take it? [03:07.7]
Scott: Yeah, that is a very large and diverse question, and what I will say is it depends on the man I wake up in the morning as and who I allow myself to become throughout the day.
So, I will say this. Some days she'll challenge me in ways that are growth-related and some days she will challenge me just to be annoying, man. She's a little sister. She grew up a little sister and her brother was an egotistical man, and she married a man with a large ego as well, and so she will literally just sit there and poke at my ego all day long, just to say like, That doesn't need to be there. Put your shoulders down. Stop puffing up. What are you doing?
Not actually like that, but from a personality level, she's always on me about just being too ego-driven and, again, approaching things from a place of just raw, unhealed emotion. She's very intelligent and emotionally intelligent, and I am kind of stunted in that regard. [04:05.8]
Again, we can talk about my past all day long, but one of my goals was to turn off empathy and turn off giving a shit. And so, she's always challenging me to empathize. She's always challenging me to feel more, approach things better. And, man, some days I accept it so willingly and openly, and I'm like, Yeah, you know what? You're right. And then, some days I'm like, Why are you always at me? Like, why can't I just exist?
Yeah, it depends very much on the man I decided to be that day, and if I decide for a minute that it's not worth the effort to be kind and be caring, I can snap and be a real ruthless and aggressive person. And so, it's always active work for me to always try to see where she's coming from, and that she's not attacking me and she's not an aggressive person. She has actually been the most helpful person to me in my entire life, so I owe it to her to remember that when we do have these types of interactions. [05:00.9]
Jonathan: You have grown up, haven’t you?
Scott: Right? That is shocking.
Jonathan: My goodness. You’ve evolved. No kidding, man. I love it. I love it.
Scott: Far beyond my wildest dreams, man, and, again, I attribute it to stepping up as a dad. That was hard. That was not easy. No one told me that literally for the first six months your fight or flight response will be triggered every day. No one told me that about any of this stuff. All my stepdad told me when I got married, he shook my hand and with a tear in his eye, he said, “Stay strong.” And I was like, Stay strong? What does that mean? Two years later I'm like, Oh, okay, I get it now.
Jonathan: Nice. What's fascinating to me is I've been thinking about this and I haven't recorded a show on it, but I will. But I found myself in a recent place where I have everything—I have the house. I have the wife. I have a kid. I have money in the bank. I have clients and all that stuff—and I found myself, sadly, depressed and not motivated, and not wanting to go to work. [06:08.2]
As I was digging in and trying to figure out what was really bothering me, I realized that I was in mourning. I was in mourning of losing the old me, the guy that got me to this point, but only because I have to be a new me to get to the next level. I'm wondering if you've ever experienced that. You said you went through changes. Did you ever go through like, Shit, am I losing who I really am or what's going on?
Scott: I'll tell you what the hardest one for me was, and I know it's taboo and a lot of people are going to go, Gasp. I am mourning the loss of my sex life as I once knew it and that for me has been a rough transition, and you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Jonathan: Are you going to make more babies?
Scott: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But it seems like the first time I try, I get it and then it's done from there, which is a blessing. But, at the same time, as a male, I would like to sleep with a woman more than once every nine months or so. [07:05.2]
Jonathan: No kidding.
Scott: No, first time was Scotland, got her. First time with the little boy, got him. I'm literally doing it for reproduction at this point.
Jonathan: No kidding.
Scott: But, again, other people don't have that blessing, and so I'm not complaining. Please don't take that in any way other than that I'm supremely blessed. But I'm mourning a lot of different things like that. Again, that angry, agitated young man, he's gone and I think that's a blessing. But there are areas of me that I've had to come to an understanding.
Tor and I used to be able to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted in the sexual regard. Then, after having children, her body started to say like, Hey, you’ve got to slow down. There are certain things we got to heal and fix, and all of that. And as a guy, to go from going all the time to shutting it off completely for … I think it's been a year and a half. We've had very little. A lot of guys would crumble and a lot of guys would get weak. [08:02.4]
I’ll admit that I've had moments where I've been sitting there going, What am I? What? I know it's only sex. Why do I feel so primitive? Why do I just want to go club her over the head and drag her into the bedroom? Why? Where are these feelings coming from?
Come to find out, guys, we get angry when we're not having sex regularly. It's a hormonal thing. It's not you being a bad person, unless you act on those things. Then you might be just struggling with some stuff and you might want to get that checked out.
But what I will say is that it came to a very big moment in my life where I was like, What's more important to me? What I want right now, having sex on a regular basis, getting my itches scratched and chasing my dopamine high, or do I want what I want and have wanted forever, the house, the close-knit cute little family who has Christmas dinners together and sit laying there reading a book beside my wife as she reads as we fall asleep at night, having the children and the grandchildren, and the dog by the fireplace, and all that stuff? [09:01.5]
I started thinking about it. At first, the sex seemed way more important. I'm not going to lie to you, it really did. I was like, Yeah, but this is now. I don't care about then. That's the long-term plan. But, over time, just the feelings and thoughts inside of me that were inspired by the serotonin-driven stuff, the long-term happiness stuff. It overcame the need to go and be sexually active, and be that person who is chasing that one thing and just trying to get his rocks off.
I know that a lot of guys are struggling with that. I've had talks with my barber about that because he recently had a baby and like, It’s all I can think about. And I'm about to have another one and so it's going to happen again. And so, there's just those things where it's something that a lot of guys go through and I think that's probably the only thing I've, quote-unquote, “mourned.”
I was worried about getting bored when I crushed all my goals, but, honestly, I've been too busy to get bored. Maybe when Scotland's a little older and in school, and I have more time on my hands, I'll have time to be like, Oh man, I've got everything I want. What now? But if I know me, I'm just going to come up with the next stage I have to reach and then I'm going to bring that young, arrogant, driven, angry and angsty person back and he's going to go after it. [10:11.5]
But, for now, I'm just adapting to the life that I've just recently come into, so I've realized that between every goal, there should be a bit of a process to allow yourself to catch up to it.
Jonathan: Yeah. I heard this really awesome advice once and I'll share it with you, and I don't know if it'll help or not. It's really simple, two words: stay strong.
Scott: That's it. That's it. And that's what I mean.
Jonathan: That’s it.
Scott: And it just came down to getting my headspace right like, Do I want what I want right now? Yes. But do I want it over what I want in 10 years? Oh, absolutely not. No. And it was something that simple.
Jonathan: Yeah, priorities. So, let's talk about this journey of growth. You've got your wife challenging you. You've got your family coming together, the house, the dog, the picket fence. What do you do then for personal growth? Is it reading? Is it finding mentors? What are some of the tips that you have? [11:09.3]
Scott: I'm very lucky in that I like to blend things. A lot of guys compartmentalize their lives and I tried that for a while, but rigidity is just another way for me to control everything. And so, I find when I'm anxious, I need rigidity. I didn't realize that the two feed each other. Anxiousness, feeds preparation and over-preparation can feed anxiousness, and I've been battling with anxiety my entire life.
What ended up happening was I started to get stressed out. Oh my God, I don't have time for this. I don't have time for that. I don't. So, I started to figure out that if you blended things, you’d have time for everything. What I mean by that is I was a podcast producer, so I started looking for shows that I needed to listen to and started producing them. Now I'm getting paid to learn instead of paying to learn. I listened to sales. I listened to marketing. I listened to personal development shows.
I listened to a show about dog psychology that taught me so much about how the human brain works, it was ridiculous, and that's where a lot of my growth came from actually, a show about learning how to be a good partner for a dog. It taught me how to be a good partner, in general. [12:13.3]
Then electric cars and technology. We've done a lot of different shows and I listened to every single one of them. So, I just learn. I just onboard things.
And then, as far as I wanted to start playing guitar again, so in the mornings, Scotland and I, we either play banjo and guitar together, and she dances and sings, and plays on her tambourine or hits her xylophone, and I practice guitar. And I found that the more I can find ways to blend either my family and me time, like tonight, perfect example—I'm going out to buy a bag of Cheetos, and Tor and I are finishing staining the living room while we listen to tunes that we like.
It's just the more I can try to and we're merging the honey do list and us time or merging my hobbies with Scotland time, or merging my job with personal development time. The more I can do that, the better I am.
And then, I do read books every now and then and again, I merge those with a certain time, too. I'm not going to go into it on the mic, but I read at a very specific time in my day and it allows me at least a good 10 minutes of reading in. [13:10.8]
Jonathan: Yeah, regularity.
Scott: Currently I'm working on a book called The Boy Crisis. I think you'd dig it, Jon. But it's about pretty much what happens to boys who have had the life that I had. Absent father. What happens to the boy? And it’s very statistics-driven and it's a really good book, but it's very eye-opening in a lot of ways. It broke my heart because I realized just how much of a statistic I was, but in the other way it opened up the door and explained a lot of what I was going through and why, and gave me a lot of answers to questions that I had.
So, yeah, that's the book I'm working on right now. Next, I'll probably go for something lighthearted because you can't read heavy all the time. I definitely make time, but I've been finding that blending has been the secret to success.
Jonathan: I love that you said that, because I talk about it on the show. I call it stacking. Stacking two or three different things that are all good for you in one minute. And some people might say that's ADD. I think it's efficiency. It’s, like you said, blending a couple of different activities and getting more accomplished in less time, and doing it in a joyful manner. So, that I love that you brought up there. [14:18.4]
Let's talk about that, that “boy crisis” idea a little bit. So, you grew up. You said that reading this book, you felt like, Wow, I'm a statistic. What's your position then? Is this more of Scotty being like, I'm going to prove everybody wrong, with the whole father thing, like you're going to be the best dad ever because you didn't grow up that way?
Scott: Yeah, part of it. To be fair, Jon, it's weird because I thought being a dad would be super spite-driven for me. I thought for sure there'd be some kind of thing there. I just fell into it naturally.
No one really told me that like 90 percent of being dad is playing games and keeping occupied, and finding fun ways to instruct your children, so that they don't realize they're learning, or even better, if you can make them excited to learn. And then, the other 10 percent is keeping them safe and putting food on the table. [15:09.5]
So, that’s it? Okay, Scotland literally looks to me to every day just to play with her and have fun with her, and that's so cool and it makes my job easy to give Tor time to sleep or time to eat or whatever. Because I don't have to sit there and think of some structured thing to do, she just wants to go jump on the bed or go for a drive.
The other day she literally looked at me and said, “Leather jacket. Drive.” And I was like, You know what, kid? Good ideas. So, we went for a drive and she got to wear her leather jacket. No one saw her. She was in her car seat, but she wanted to wear it. So, that's being a dad, like, What do you need? Let's go do that. Right? It was very easy for me to do.
But, yeah, I guess I do. There's a special place in my heart that says, You're going to rock this shit because it didn't happen for you. But I’ve found that where that came in handy was recently. My father has decided to become very aggressive and conflict-oriented about it, again, because he doesn't get access to his granddaughter right now, but rather than grow, he has decided to make it a problem. [16:10.8]
And I guess, at the end of the day, it helps me look at it from, Okay, here's a guy who couldn't stick around. Let's look at where it's coming from. Where I look at it, I get to say, Dude, don't stress. Don't listen to a word he's saying. You're actually a better dad in these capacities. And that's not saying he's a bad person. Man, this guy has got a lot of things he can teach the world. But I find that he’s just kind of being a little bit angry, angsty and immature about it, which is okay. You know what? We all need those moments. I've been there, man.
But I guess it helped me grow beyond the role of dad and into a man who could understand why he's doing what he's doing, how he's feeling to some degree, but also there is a comparison element there that gets me through the day and helps me sleep at night, for sure.
But where I found the statistics, it was like 80 percent of males go through this and 70 percent go through that, and a lot of it was like end up in jail. I don't have the statistics on me, so I can't quote them, but fatherless boys end up shoplifting more. They end up committing more crimes. They end up turning to drugs and alcohol and addiction more. They tend to go to jail more. They tend to run out on their partners. [17:20.9]
There were a lot of things where I was like, Oh, no, these are all me. But then, there were other avenues where I was like, But here's the things in my future that I'm going to have to look out for, like suicide, divorce and stuff like that, so I know that I have to fortify myself against these things, because I am more likely to commit these things based on the patterns that I've seen.
Do I believe patterns can be broken? Absolutely. But I believe we have to be super mindful about it and very intentional about our effort toward becoming better people—and that's where Fathership came from, man. It was either make myself publicly accountable for growth or fail, and so I started a show about stepping up, mostly so that I step up. I don't care if anybody follows me. I need to step up and I need to be a better man than either of my dads were. Quite frankly, I want to be a better dad than anyone is. But that's just my competitive streak. [18:15.0]
Jonathan: Wow. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit more about that. I was going to ask you about where the idea and concept came from, and I like what you're saying. I like the idea of the show being for you and holding you accountable. What are some of the things that you guys have talked about? Because you've got a few shows already out there, don't you?
Scott: Yeah, we've done an “Ask Me Anything” that went everywhere from your least favorite part of parenting all the way to “What coffee do you prefer?” all the way into “Do you protect your kids from finances?” That was a scattershot episode of 15-minute answers.
There's one coming out on entitlement as a father and the fact that you don't get respect just because you have kids. Every single person in your life decides to put that crown on you and crown you as a king. You're not a king just because you have a castle in a family, right? [19:07.9]
Your wife, if she respects you, she's going to crown you. Your kids, if they respect and love you, they're going to crown you. And if you're not wearing that crown of respect, that means you have work to do. A lot of guys just think, Oh, I'm your dad. You need to respect me. Absolutely not.
So, that's the kind of episodes. I'll be doing some on addiction and how addiction impacts parenting. I've done the versions of yourself, and how marriage and having a baby, and having a second baby and starting a business, they all require you to do software updates. So, right now I'm running on Scott 7.0. Scott 1.0 was so long ago, but Scott 8.0 is coming up. I keep upgrading.
Then I did an episode in praise of stay-at-home moms because stay-at-home moms get a lot of flak. They get attacked by society. They get attacked by their moms. Some of them even get attacked by their husbands. And so, I did an episode where I called out the value of stay-at-home moms, but I also called out the people who are calling them out. [20:00.8]
Yeah, I'm kind of going for any area in my life that I feel I'm struggling with or that is bothering me about parents in the current climate. I'm going after it and I'm making it my mission to at least put a good foot forward and try to steer people, and myself, primarily, into a better direction.
Jonathan: Yeah, I'm digging that, bro. I am digging it. So, that is anywhere that you can find a podcast, you'll find Fathership, right? “The Father Ship”?
Scott: Yeah. It's “Fathership,” which I thought was kind of cool because apparently a fathership is like a collection of priests, which is not the way I went with it. I was just going with fathership because it's relationship-based. A lot of guys, they become dads and they're not necessarily the best at relationships, and being a dad is a hundred percent relationship-based. That's why I named it “Fathership.”
Jonathan: I thought it had something to do with the Podcast Bay theme and pirates and all that. “The Father Ship!” You’re on the Father Ship, people! Get moving forward.
Scott: Everybody thinks. [21:00.8]
Jonathan: Cool. So, is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to talk about, as we're rolling up on the end of this?
Scott: The topics are endless. We could go anywhere with it. But one thing I wanted to say is that I think your angst is still there. I think you are not necessarily [without it]. You just don't have anywhere you need to use it yet. But I'm sure, once you figure out your next step of what you want to conquer, that side of you, you're going to let it back out, because I've seen it. I've seen that your dogged pursuit of success in everything you do and that's the part of you… Oh, my little one has to go to bed. She's mad about it.
Jonathan: I hear her. She's fighting. There you go, man. It’s your life.
Scott: Yeah. But I think you'll let it off when the time comes. But one thing I'll say is that, in spite of all of that angstiness, in spite of all of that uplevelling and everything, it's still a struggle every day to find balance. Again, I'm watching my family grow up right outside that door, and if I'm not intentional about it, they'll grow up without me, or every time they knock on the door and bother me, I'll be a douche. [22:00.6]
It's all those things that come with working from home and doing a work-from-home business that everyone thinks just because you're working from home, it's so much easier. It’s not. You still have to be super intentional. You still have to be super kindhearted and, at the same time, you still have to find ways to get your work done. It is about balance.
Some nights, you’ll work late. Some days, you'll wake up early. Some days, you'll have to stop to take your wife or kid to wherever it is they need to go, and you'll have to pick back up. The big thing is do it with grace. Don't ever let anyone feel they're a problem. Be happy to stop. Be happy to start up again. And even though it's challenging sometimes, the reward will be endless, because the more you make people feel they're a problem, the more they will behave like a problem.
And so, if you're struggling to find balance, man, just start smiling more. Start being okay with whatever comes and just you know you've got it. You know you're the professional and you will never miss a deadline, and the father in you does not want to screw up and the good husband in you does not want to screw up. So, just breathe. Be kinder and understand that you will get the job done. So, don't stress. [23:03.2]
Jonathan: Man, listen to this guy. Wise beyond his years. So, Fathership. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you will find Scott spitting fire. And, dude, I’ve got to tell you, man, I'm impressed with your journey. I'm always rooting for you and I'm stoked that you took some time out of your day. I know you're busy. I know you've got a family and a business. So, thank you for hanging out with the Daddy's Working tribe. I appreciate you, man.
Scott: I'm eternally grateful for the invitation, man. I've been waiting for it. It’s the whole reason I became a dad. I was like, Tor, we have to have a baby, so I can get on the show. And now that that has paid off, does anyone want a baby? No, I'm kidding. No, I'm eternally grateful to be here, man. I appreciate you believing that I am the person to speak to your audience. I appreciate it very much.
Jonathan: Yes, sir. That is another Daddy's Working in the can. We will be back in your earbuds next time. Thank you for tuning in. [24:00.9]
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