Unknown Speaker 0:00

If you are the foundation of your family, you are the firm footing. They build their lives on. You carry a glorious burden and you never dream of laying it down. You carry it with joy and gratitude. You show up, even when you don't feel like it. You lead, serve, love and protect. You are a father. This is the dead word podcast where men are forged into elite husbands and fathers by learning what it takes to become harder to kill, easier to love and equipped to lead. Get ready to start building the only legacy that truly matters. Your family

Curt Storring 0:59

what is going on everyone? This is Curt Storring, your host and the founder of data work. I am joined today by my friend and mentor, a personal mentor Scott Ramage, guys, this is perhaps one of the most fired up I have been listening back to one of these podcasts. It is excellent. You're gonna learn a ton on this. Scott is a very successful family man, successful businessman. He's got a lot going on and he shares a lot of wisdom. We're gonna go deep here talking about how Scott has navigated raising his teenagers. He's got a couple of boys, both teenagers while building a beautiful marriage, the power of doing the hard work ahead of time, being consistent and having a strong moral foundation as a father, the importance of having clear boundaries and natural consequences to help train your children to be excellent. Why every father needs to have that solid moral foundation and how to bring those values to your family, leading with extreme transparency and communication inside your family. How to balance serving your wife while also being the true leader of your family. The Golden Key to the sex life of your dreams and how to become a more refined warrior husband, father and man through the power of community. Scott Ramage is passionate about helping men become leaders in their homes and communities. And that is why he co founded the brotherhood of fatherhood, a group of men to help each other step up and lead, do hard things and never settle on good enough. Scott is the host of the Brotherhood of fatherhood, podcast and stories that sell podcast. He has been married for 26 years and has two teenage boys. Scott enjoys lifting weights, rocking, snowboarding, mountain biking and traveling with his family. He's the owner of media machine, a company that provides media services, virtual assistants and podcast production to small businesses and coaches. Scott is a productivity nerd and loves leveraging systems to get more done in less time and guys, you're going to want to check out the brotherhood of fatherhood.com/events We talked about this a little bit in the podcast. This is one of the events that I am trying my hardest to get to I don't think I will be able to do it because my wife will have just had a baby. I don't know how I'm going to travel like that. But guys, if there was any possible way, this is one of the few events I would make an effort to get to highly recommend you check that out and check out Scott's podcast brotherhood fatherhood podcast he's also got a Facebook group. A lot of good stuff going on. Now guys, if you have been getting value out of the show, which I know for a fact after today, you are going to please leave a quick review and rating Apple review. Spotify rating takes two to 30 seconds genuinely helps get this in the ears of more men and after today you will understand why everyone needs to listen to that or podcast if they are a husband if they're a father if they want to be the greatest, most elite man that they can be anyway, guys, you're going to love this. I won't say anymore. We'll get right into the episode with Scott Ramage. Here we go. Alright, Dad's back for another episode of the data. We're podcast round two with Scott Ramage. And since we last spoke, this is episode like 41 I think this was ages ago, in in our relationship in my life like this was everything has changed since then. And now I am like very proud and very humbled to call you a mentor, and a friend and someone who's like really just breathing into my life. So I'm pumped. Because as we talked about family, you you're just really good at this man. Like, you're just you seem to be really good at this. And you've got very wise, grounded and nuanced things to share. So I want to bring you back on for a few reasons. And I think we'll just like have a conversation and start shooting. So let's just take topic wise, and let's start with teenagers. Okay, because my oldest is almost 10. And I've had a lot of requests for guys who listen to the show her like, awesome to hear guys going through stuff when I'm going through and succeeding. And could you bring more guys on who have teenagers 20 year olds, etc. So can you just like I don't know, man, I don't know if you want to give like a bit of a background. I'll read your intro to beginning so like guys know who you are, but okay, you have two teenagers now or is it just Okay, and what is that? Like? How have you prepared like you want to just dive into whatever comes up and then I'll pick that apart as we go.

Scott Rammage 4:39

Yeah, absolutely. So, so two teenagers. Quite honestly, it is a it's a roller coaster. And it's I want to preface this with I have two boys. And so boys are much different than girls. I'm very aware of that. I did teach in public schools middle School for 13 years. So I have a lot of experience with teenage girls. And, you know, not from a parent parental point of view, but I did see the hormones and the things happening and, and the real battles and and trials that kids go through this, especially, you know, middle schoolers, those those really tumultuous years 12 to 1617 are just really difficult. And, you know, I think my main message, if I could wrap this up, before we even get started, is let's go do the work ahead of time. Like this is the Why are my wife and I incredibly proud of our kids and have very, very few issues. Because we did the work. We did the hard work early. And we've been consistent. And we've had a moral foundation we've been, we talk, we talk all the time, we don't hide things, we show our emotions, we talk about our emotions. I mean, I could go on and on. And I think we want to pick this apart a little more. But really, it This is years of work. It's in right now I have a 1514 year old turning 15 like next week, and an 18 year old, who happens to still be living in the house, but very, for very purpose for reason. And, Kurt, I'm telling you, we have zero issues. And we have had zero issues for years and many people Oh, that's just luck, or, you know, personality. And like, if you look at me, I was not that way. I had an amazing upbringing and learned a ton from my parents. But it's definitely upfront work. And that's the thing I want to share with men, I want them to know like, Hey, if you want to have a really great relationship with your kids, and you want them to be serving their communities, be leaders in their school, be a pillar of how you act in a community, serving others working really hard, you know, watching watching what they say no, no, really snarky attitudes, those types of things. It all starts as early as you can possibly start it,

Curt Storring 7:16

man. Okay, so doing the hard work early, being consistent, a moral foundation communication, emotional mastery, awareness, relationships, those seem to be the themes that I just picked out of that. Do you want to dive into? What the What you mean by doing the work first? Because we'll get into consistency, moral foundation, communication, all that kinda stuff afterwards. But like, what is this work that you're talking about? What lays that foundation that like you just keep doing that has success? Is there like a few things? Oh, yeah.

Scott Rammage 7:41

So first of all, I'm going to make a statement that I really struggle with personally, and I've actually heard you talk about this in your content as well. And that's the word obedience. And so I think there's a real fine line between creating a robot a machine, someone who doesn't think on their own, but also having a really established line of, you know, black and white, very black and white, and what we used to say, and right now I have, I have a little different perspective on it. But we used to say, Delayed obedience is disobedience. So hey, come down here and do your chores. And five minutes later, they're down. I'm like, You came down, however, what you did was disobedient. And so I want to be very clear that I want independent thinkers, my kids are independent thinkers, I absolutely want independent thinkers. But what my wife was really good at, and I'm going to be very clear, my wife is a leader in this area. And I learned because I was very immature. And she was actually mature in this area when my kids were young, was there is a black and white. And you never waver from it. And so when we're raising our kids, it's either you do what you're supposed to do you act accordingly, you're safe. We always like looked at it in terms of safety. Like, okay, if I'm going to tell you to stop, it's because I know that if you go to the edge of the road, and you're you don't look like you're going to stop a car is going to panic. That's dangerous. So understand, we always give a reason for why. And it didn't have to, it was never like because I said so it was because we were like, hey, look, let's look at the bigger picture, even when they were too young to understand we were explaining a car and adult driving car doesn't know that you're going to run to the edge of the curb and then stop. You're going to scare them, and they might panic and actually end up hitting you. So when you run to the curb, when we're saying stop. It's because we want to be safe. We want you to be safe. We want you to understand that what you do has consequences. But what you do also affects others. So we from the very early time were explainers and not to the point where they're like well, why? Well why it was proactive, very proactive. I've always felt the more that my kids understand the Why ahead of time, the less I have to deal with it in the moment of turmoil in the moment of they're going through something, and maybe it's rebellion, the more we can do that ahead of time, so it's doing the hard work. It's talking, expressing being very clear. And there is a time when you're saying like, some day, you will understand that, but that's a little condescending, the more we can talk to them at a point of, let me explain the best I can your level, they might not understand it, then but over time, they're going to understand it, by the time they're at that age are not going to question you, they're gonna be like, my parents have the best for me, and I'm going to follow what they do. There's another caveat to this though. You as the adult have to model what you're talking about. This is key, you can't talk something and do something else that is incredibly destructive. So I attribute my boys doing just amazingly well, right now, to all the hard work early on through really, really in depth conversation, and always being very black and white and clear. Like, if you disobeyed if you did these things. Then there was consequences. It's like if you didn't go to bed at eight, we said to go to bed at eight there was consequences. 801 is not 8803 is not eight, even if you said well, my pajamas got stuck. I couldn't get them on. Well, then you should have started getting ready earlier. We literally lived out so hard for me. I'm like Kim, Hey, babe, like, come on. He's three, you know her whatever. And she was so resolute on that. And I started to see like, oh, wow, this equates to further in life showing up for class. Well, I didn't my Peachie was stuck in my in my locker. Well, hey, 100% accountability, that's on you borrow, like you should have like been prepared earlier. So what we want to do, and something I've been saying for years, is we're not raising children. We're raising future adults, we're raising the future, we cannot treat them like children, we have to train them and model for them, and give them real clear expectations of what it looks like to succeed.

Curt Storring 12:12

Hmm, man, that was awesome. Thank you. There's a number of things in there that I'm picking up on that I want to go deeper on. So like, we're just gonna dive deeper and deeper and deeper as we go. A few things on that. Number one, there is the question of obedience. I think a lot of people, myself included, were or I was triggered by that, because I was like, oh, no, the free thinker thing. And only since becoming a Christian Am I like, Oh, I get it. A part of me training them up in the way that they should go is giving them an example of what it means to be obedient, because I want to be obedient to God, right. And if I want them to do that, then they need to know that obedience actually, is a virtue, unlike what I posted before, but that, that that mindset shift for me was like, in the thinking, and in sort of society at large, and in a place that maybe a broken society, I don't want them to go along and just be like, okay, government, whatever, I'm just gonna do what you say, but to me, as God's representative to them, like do they should definitely obey it now, in that I want people to like to hear this for what it is, there were consequences. And you're modeling it. And you're, I think what I'm getting from doing their work is like, you're just engaged, man, you're just engaged, you're doing the right thing. You're always looking at how you can lead your kids with communication, all that kind of stuff. And when there are consequences, like you were just saying, with the pajamas, there's trust that gets built for you. Because they're like, I wonder if my dad's gonna, like, come down on me now. It's like, no, no, I know, my dad will hold me to account because he got high expectations, because he can see my potential. Now, on that point, though, can you give like an example of what those consequences might be because we do the same thing? It's like, there are boundaries, there are consequences. And you're just not going to have enough like, we won't have enough time to read tonight, if you don't get into bed right now. That's, that's it. That's all there is. So what were some of those consequences that can work along the way? Maybe even like a few examples, if anything comes to mind, that are like, here's the boundaries, what would the consequences be in that case, for example,

Scott Rammage 14:06

before we say go there, I want to I want to make it very clear. My wife was very good at this in the early ages. I did not mature into this, I followed suit, right? Like she's just black and white like that. It wasn't until later in life. And that's part of my story, probably we talked about in the first episode where I started to, like, carry on and understand the impact of this. And then when you have that team, it's even more powerful, right? We really tried to stick to natural consequences. So a natural consequence, like if you're late because you know, your pajamas took Okay, well guess what we're going to do? We're going to move that that time back to 755. Because then we're going to make sure that everything is ready. Or like you said, well, we don't have time to read now or whatever it is. And sometimes that will in that child is so hard. We're not trying to break the will we're trying to relate the choice to a natural cause consequence or what this looks like in real life, like you'll lose your job. If you're late in your in real life, you'll lose pay if you're late in real life. So how do you equate that into, you know, reality? And that was always kind of the drive like, how do we do this? But really, I think you're going to parents, you're going to have to do this less than less, The more consistent you are, and what I would challenge anybody says, My kid is super strong willed, yes, there are super strong willed kids. But I would challenge if I said, Okay, if I had a Lookingglass into every scenario where you ask them to do something, and they don't, and how you responded, would you say that 50% of the time, you might waver a little bit. And I would guarantee, I would put a personal guarantee that it was 50%, or much, much higher. And, you know, with my degree in psychology, and Master's in Education, I'm going to tell you, kids need to know where their boundaries are. If there's any, any interpretation to that, they will consistently and constantly push it until they feel like they're not like doing this on purpose. It's built in, it's a behavioral thing that we have, they're going to find that breaking point. And so kids that have less and less idea of where that black and white line is, are going to continue subconsciously pushing and finding and reaching. This is a safety. This is like where am I safe? Who's got me who's taking care of me who's in control. And then where is that spot, it's almost obvious, you look at a home where there's no structure, those kids go to school, and they're always pushing, pushing, pushing, or in the community, they're always pushing pushing for that boundaries. They are starving, starving for someone to say, That's it, but they're not trained to know how to respond to that. So there's this whole process that has to go into place. But if your kids are constantly pushing, there's a good chance they're starving for real boundaries and understanding and clarity from you.

Curt Storring 17:08

Man, thank you for being the one to say that because I feel like if I have to tell another guy that I'm gonna, this is gonna fall off. And it's like, yeah, I saw that in my own life. And this is why I'm so strong on this is because when we finally figured this out, the boundaries and consequences were the way to go. Rather than just like, Oh, I'm angry, so I'm gonna punish you. And it's like, it's a punitive thing. They don't learn anything. And it's usually just because I'm angry. It's like, oh, if I tell them upfront, which is what you said before, over, communicate, in a sense, and then if I just stick to it, they will be upset. And I think this is what a lot of parents probably moms and dads struggle with. It's like, well, my kids upset and then I'm gonna get upset. And it's either they can't handle their kid being upset, or their own anger at the annoyance or the sound or whatever their kid being upset, makes them waver. And that could be wavering in the okay, it's fine, or it could be wavering in the now I'm just going to bring the hammer down on rice. He made me upset. Right. So yeah, having those consequences. be repeatable and what we do and maybe tell me if you guys did anything similar, we started at things were going to happen every day. So they learn them. So mealtime, shower time, bedtime, every single day, we just started with this new section, or you know, every week or two, that came mealtime. Now we sit at the table, you're not going to get up, you're not going to do X, Y, and Zed. And here's why. And then if you do, looks like you're playing at the table, when you play the table, I'm gonna clear your plate for you, because you're done. And that's it. And it's like, as soon as that happened three or four times, we're like, oh, okay, we're just changed. Yeah, it's amazing. What happens if you just stick to it? Did you guys see the same?

Scott Rammage 18:37

Yes. And I kind of hate throwing my younger under the bus right now. But he's not gonna listen to this. So my 14 year old, has a new set of friends. It's very positive environment. He's back to playing that one game. I can't even think of the name of it. It's online. Everybody plays it. It's free. And you can communicate through it. We're really strict on his usage of games. But he he's a ninth grader, you know, he's 14. And this is an example of this working, we noticed his grades going down, and he would come home and he'd start playing this thing. And my wife and I are talking like his grades are going down. He's spending all his time playing this game. We see a direct correlation here. And so I was nervous. She goes, we've got to talk to him. I was so nervous talk to him. We sat down and talk to him. And this is the beauty of building this. Because it said, Hey, bud, here's a pattern I'm noticing. When you come home and play your game. Hey, you're still working out? Working out. It's awesome. But when you come home and play your game, yeah, you're doing your homework, but it's really quick, and you're not doing any extra time study. And your grades have been going down. He's like, huh, and I'm like, so here's what we're going to do. You're either going to spend the time you need to spend doing it. And then if there's any time left, you can play or if this continues, we're just going to not play the game all week long. And so at this point, you can either prove us wrong or you can prove us right? And the consequences are on you. You could still play it on the weekend, as long as your homeworks done and you're getting good grades. As soon as those grades stop slope, even in the wrong direction, we are implementing that black and white. He knows exactly where it is. But we're so far at this point that we stuck to it, that his response was, oh, yeah, okay, I see that. Okay, I'll do that. And instead of I was literally thinking, we're gonna have a war on our hands. It was such an easy conversation. It was so easy. And like, you know, and it will probably work for a week and a half, and then we'll probably have to come back to the conversation. Okay, we noticed your time going up. But there's another thing we do. Every single night, we're together, which is least four nights a week, because we make it a priority. We eat dinner together. And there's no phones at the table. And we just have, we laugh, and we have fun. And it's taken us. I mean, I just want every family in the world to do this. I really do. It's such an incredible connection time. Another benefit of that is a break in those things that we're talking about playing games going outside and playing, which I wish they would do more. They used to do it a lot, because that's what we let them do. But I'm just saying like, if you do the work early, when you get to this point, I was ready for a battle. But it was like he knows, he knows we're serious. He knows that we're bringing it up, because it's a real concern. We're not just flapping hot air. We're not just upset. He knows I'm really stressed right now. He's not equating that to my response. He's equating reality and data of the past and trust, like, okay, yeah, you guys are right. Because we proven over time, that we're in it to win it for him. We're not in it to win it to make our life easier.

Curt Storring 21:44

Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, that's a really good distinction. Okay, so that was like consistency, that was the black and white, that was a hard work early. There's a lot of communication in there. Like, if guys, if you if you picked up on all of those communication points, and how Scott laid those down, that's probably different than most of us are communicating with our kids. I certainly wasn't doing this before I started doing this work. And there's a lot in there and the emotional understanding of that, like the admittance of like, there's nervousness, you can see there's like some anger going on here. You didn't want to do it, it's like, man, you just have to be aware, if you want to lead your family, well, you got to be an emotional master. And you also have to be communicating master, because this is where intimacy is built. And trust is built through all of this kind of stuff. So this important the the last piece of this before we move on, I think to maybe we will segue into family leadership, I think in a moment here. But like this moral foundation, there's a couple of things. This is real for me now, right? Like I'm building my children up, I'm bringing this up in, you know, this, this new moral foundation for me. And I think this is so important for guys, I actually talked about this in the last episode I did with Aaron, one or two episodes ago. And it was like he went through this whole spiel on like the importance of understanding your identity and what you believe about the world. I also had Ken curry on, he's a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. And he's like, if you want to stop being externally referenced and be internally referenced, which is like I knew who I am and why I do things. First question is, what do you believe about the world? I'm like, Man, I understand the what do you want? Where are you going? What do you need? But why do I care about like, what the basis of existential life is, like, who cares about that? And yet, man, it's important. So I don't know if you want to like, riff on that if you want to go into how you approached the moral foundation in your family. But I think this is like a key piece that is not really accepted to talk about anymore, for whatever reason, and it's vital. I'm finding,

Scott Rammage 23:38

like, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, you know, I'm, I have my Christian faith. I've been like that my entire life, I've definitely questioned it. I've definitely done a lot of research, a lot of soul searching grown over the years. I'm gonna go out on a limb, even say like, if you're not a Christian, you've got to have a foundation, you have to have a moral foundation. What is happening in our society right now is that we don't have a moral foundation. Like I won't even go to the point I'm probably going to lose some of your listeners here or people that don't like me, I'd even go to the point that this whole green movement, this whole Earth First movement, which I'm like, I want the best for our Earth, like, can a break. I am not the opposite of that. is almost people searching for a foundation. I don't have a belief system. So I'm gonna believe that my purpose in life is saving the Earth and doing everything I can. I firmly believe that a lot of that comes from people not having a moral foundation at Cornerstone to lay everything down against it is the absolute essence of success in family and personal development, in your impact on the world. It's how you make decisions. And every decision should be measured against your values. Every A stinking decision needs to be measured against your values. If you do not know what your values are, and values often come from some sort of moral belief system, then you're really wandering and you're doing a massive disservice for your kids. This is where kids become confused. They don't, all of a sudden, this is the worst all of a sudden, it's like, this is my truth. Well, Bs there is no like, everybody has their own truth. Yes, there is truth. And then there is like Jordan Peterson would say like, emotional dysfunction, behavioral and progressive dysfunction, you are in a, like a Piaget or excuse me in in one of the very lower tiers of emotional growth. And so this is the basis of how we lead an amazing family. And if you want to look at the history of cultures that have lost that every single one has been destroyed, every single one of them that stripped away their foundation has been destroyed. So history proves itself. You know, another historical thing I believe, up to recently, every single mass shooter, school mass shooter was fatherless or lived in a single family home, like we have to look at the data, we have to look at the circumstances, we have to look at the history so that we know why and what's happening. So we should be learning from those. So the moral foundation is a absolute no brainer. And gentlemen, if you do not have one, sit down with your wife, your loved one, your fiance, whatever it is, and have a really deep conversation, what do we believe? What do we believe about this world, we need to know because we need to base everything we do on that my wife and I did a in a year trip. So I took her away, we went to hotel, bought her nice dinner, got a really fancy room, had chart paper, big old three M chart or sticky note chart paper, and we went over our family values, we define them. So incredibly, like, boom, boom, boom, we're gonna get a big old thing made, we wish we would have done this 10 years, but they've always been there. We've always kind of unspoken known. And I look at those. And I'm like those are morally based. Those are based on the foundation we have in our belief system. So we've been operating from those, it's just a challenge to people literally sit down with your spouse and have some deep, deep discussions about how you really want your family operating system to look.

Curt Storring 27:35

I love that. Thank you for the actionable challenge on that. And you know what I was thinking about this, it's like, you need that as a father to leave the family. But what happens when we extrapolate our children out into the world that you just mentioned, which is if we do not show them, or teach them or bring them up in some values system, some deep belief, moral foundation, they will therefore be the ones who are rudderless. And they will then be the one seeking and so you are failing your children if you do not give them some idea of what this looks like, because they will, as human beings naturally gravitate to some form of meaning, because I think that's just inbuilt in us. And if it's not the right one, it's not a good one. If it's not a fruitful one, then man, there's just so much sadness that can come from that for kids. And that's honestly I will call out dads and say that's your responsibility to do that. And your family.

Scott Rammage 28:25

Oh, no doubt, no doubt. Another thing that we did, you know, and we're not perfect, we are very far from perfect. We have had success, and we are experiencing success. But another thing that we've done is even from this trip, we brought that home, and I want to talk about communication. This is so incredibly important. We went over a budget, we went over a goal for our year for income because we're both self employed, we went over a stretch goal. And we went we went for the big goal. And then we did our family values. And then we did a family trip. And we planned all these things. And we came home and we had a family meeting. And we said hey, your mom and I spent you know eight to 10 hours doing this we're going to present them to you this is not written in stone because we want to explain to you how we got to where we're going but we want to hear you so we went through the family values first. That was incredible my boys were like oh my gosh that's amazing because we one of them was we value experiences over things and so then we were able to talk about then when we went to our first one was Christ first I mean we that is you know I believe in tithe I believe in giving your first like this first of the year I've been I've been my church does this thing where you faster certain things. So the first God is first and everything my day starts with God. It's like everything I do. You guys can audit me, like just doesn't go away. It is a part of my inner working. But we value experiences over things and we've talked to him, hey, this year we went to the Gulf Coast. We went to Idaho, we went I mean we we laid out all the things like the first we said What was the best part of this year? And those were the things they talked about. And so we're like, yes, this aligns, and we shared it with them. And I said, Hey, and here's what we're thinking we're going to do this year, and they were like, thrilled. We went over those family values. They're like, I don't think we could have it any better. But we were willing to change those with family input at that age, right. So we have buy in. And these are, these are just things that you can do. But the reason they align with our values is because we've been talking to them about it since day one, unashamedly. And like even through our challenges, Kurt, and this is something I talk to men on my podcast a lot about, when I fail, when I've done something wrong. When I've made a decision, this comes from micro decisions to macro, micro failures to macro, micro success to macro. They know, guys, we're having a tough month. And as a solo entrepreneur, as a business owner, this can happen. Here's a decision that I made six months ago, and looking back has led to where I might be $5,000, shy this month. But I want you to understand that the decisions I made are the reasons we are going through this tough part. We as men have to have those conversations, because all we're doing is setting them up for success. In everything I do. I want people to audit me on this, I tell them everywhere I fail, I just do. And I tell them everywhere I succeed, but guess what they do. They can identify where they're failing. And they can identify where they're succeeding. And we've learned to mind the game over the gap. If you haven't read that book, the gap in the game, they've learned to see, they've learned to pay attention to the growth. But they've also learned to see failures and how that's led to grow. So all now their focuses is on the game. We're always looking at the game. This was a failure. But it led to this place where we're not going to do that again. And that's again, and we got to just start so early. We have to talk openly, emotionally, I mean, my kids have seen me cry, Utah often, but they see me cry, and they know exactly why I'm not gonna hide it. They've seen my wife and I argue, and they get embarrassed when I grabbed her but, but like, I tell them every week, at least, my prayer for you is that you have a relationship with your wife, like I have a relationship with your mother, we are best friends. And we do argue. But that's because we love each other dearly. And we're two different people. But then they see the process they see, like we may argue, and they get a little uncomfortable. And then an hour later, we're totally normal. We will tell them, I will go to them and say, Hey, I was rude. Your mom, I want your I asked for her forgiveness. I would like your forgiveness for you having to see me be so disrespectful. Guys, it's hard. But I'm telling you what your boys are going to do the same thing. They're going to treat their wives incredibly well. The key to a happy man is emotional intimacy. If you can establish emotional intimacy in your marriage with your spouse, you are going to see so many so many returns. And another thing if you have daughters, you are laying the foundation, you are laying the future of her life, she's going to find someone who treats her the way you treat your wife. Let me say that again. She's going to find someone who treats her the way you treat your wife. If you don't treat your wife, like a queen, if you don't serve her with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind all of your body, her future husband is not going to I want you to really let that sink in. And it doesn't mean I told you this earlier, Kurt this doesn't mean happy wife happy life. This is not what I'll go into that I want to hear though. I mean, I every time I've talked about like, I serve my wife I like and I fail all the time. But my goal is just server I pray every morning that every single one of her wildest dreams comes true. And I'm able to make be a part of that and make that happen. But I'm still a leader in the home. I'm still the leader in our family. In fact, she even says to me, I'm so glad that when things hit the fan, you are resolute you know what to do. She was you are the leader. I am unashamed. And she's a very driven woman. She's very driven. She's very independent, but she will literally tell me I'm so glad I can rely on you to make the final call. And when there's big decisions, she'll weigh in but she says, I'm going with whatever you say and that's hard sometimes. So I want to delineate here that happy wife happy life is a lame way is a cop out to really stepping up to what you are supposed to be as a husband. I don't know what else to say it's serve her and understand and that the road to great sex, the road to great emotional intimacy, the road to success with your kids, the road to success in your business in your career is being emotionally available and serving to your wife that motional servanthood. And by that, like, let me give you a really practical thing, my wife will come with me in the morning with something she's stressed about. I'm like, Okay, here's what you need, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And just like I can solve this problem. And this is what men do. And I've learned through courses that we've taught, and through going through courses, and understanding her love languages, and time being married 26 going on 27 years now, that might not be what she wants. And I think, I don't know, if I went over this on the last podcast with you. I tell this all the time, when my wife comes to me stressed, upset, concerned, or has a problem. I will intentionally learn to stop and say, before we go any further, would you like me to help you solve the problem? Or would you just like me to listen?

Curt Storring 36:11

Game changer, man, game started doing that, too.

Scott Rammage 36:13

Yeah, it is it is. And that's what I mean, when I'm talking about emotional intimacy. That's what I'm talking about being tuned in. And there's so many other like, action points I could tell you to take. But it is a, it is a tool that will rock your world. And it will as as problem solvers, typically, it will be very difficult for you to do, you will have to and, and what I've learned is when I come in that way, and she says, I just need your support. Now hugger holder, whatever it is, I need or just listen, without looking at my phone, turn it upside down and scoot it far where I can't reach it. By the way, be visual with those things, be intentional with those things. And then show later come back and say okay, I'm like, How do I solve this problem? What do you think I should do? And then I get to do what I like to do. And I get to come in and like, okay, and man, did we have a breakthrough this year, I mean, 26 plus years. And she made a move strategically for her business that she would have normally just copped out of, but it was because I came to her and I listened. And I said, I have ideas. I let her talk. And then later I was she said, Okay, and I kind of said, Okay, here's what I think. Here's, you know, I know that your instinct is just kind of fold and do what it is. But we're talking about like a $3,000 a month difference between just having this conversation and just folding. She went ahead, faced into the storm tackled that conversation. And it was a no brainer, the person was like, Yeah, okay. Like, perfect. And, and she's like, I would have folded every single time. The only reason that worked is because I shut up and just listened.

Curt Storring 37:58

Man, okay, and here's something we don't talk about often on here. Because usually, you know, guys have a lot of work to do before they get to this point. This also is how, at least I've experienced an increase in intimacy. And I mean that emotionally, but also physically, because I hear so often from guys that they're like, Well, I initiated and then she rejected and so like, I just, whatever resent, resent, resent, and guys don't understand that women. And I'm gonna say all women, but who knows, you know, I'm not a woman, I can't identify like that, even though I try really hard. Sometimes it's still not real. I can't stress enough that the emotional safety, the psychological safety, needs to be there for the intimacy and the trust to happen. And so as the man when you're ready to go at the flick of a switch, because that's how most of us are wired. That's not how she operates. And as the leader in the marriage, you've got insane influence. And if you do what Scott is saying, in all aspects of your relationship, I found at least it's like, you can hold that space, you can bring her to the space where she feels safe and seen and loved and soothed. Then she'll come back to you, maybe later and do this. Why say foreplay should be all day. It's not a five minute before sex thing. It should be all day because you're there intimacy intimately for her. Later on, she'll come back to exactly what you just said. And rather than, hey, I think I'd like your help. Now. It's, hey, I'm ready to go now. Yeah, that is man. Like, this is so important on everything. You guys wanted a marriage? I don't know if that brings anything up. Oh, shit.

Scott Rammage 39:28

So every time I bring this up, guys free, so I'm so glad you opened the door for me. And I'm sorry. But I will. I say this with caution, because I know not everybody lives under a cookie cutter of Scott and my wife's marriage. I understand. And we're very clear. We've worked with many couples that have gone through infidelity and saved their marriage. We've done a lot of work in this area. So understand, but the equation is the same for every guy. Like, look, guys, if your wife had, you know, like, has a work husband, where they're not really they're not sexually intimate, but it's, you know, it's kind of weird. They're, you know, go to lunch together and you know, you know the thing, that's because your, this is on you is because you're not fulfilling and emotional intimacy need for her, I'm guaranteeing you, if your wife cheats on you, it's because you weren't filling an emotional need for now there are psychologically unstable people, and I want to be very clear about that. Take responsibility, 100% responsibility, blame her, all you want is gonna do no good. But I will tell you if your wife went out and had an affair tomorrow, and you found out about it the next day. And instead of pushing blame on her, all you did, was focused on what we're talking about, really digging into emotional intimacy. Really learning that language, understanding her love languages, tapping into those, and then getting really into this emotional intimacy, you'll save your marriage. If you can put away your anger. And forgive you will save your marriage. And guess what, it'll be 100 times better. But here's the part that people get really squirmy when I talk about your sex life will be through the roof. If you make this a practice, I'm not I'm not. I don't say this to brag. She serves me in that area. She has, I'm sure she enjoys it as well. But she serves me in that area. And we're talking about guys, you could be having sex once a week, once every other week, once a month. I know a lot of guys that said it's been three months, it's been four months, we're talking about three, four times a week, what guy doesn't dream of that? I am absolutely I'm handing you the golden key curtain, I are handing you the golden key. This is it. This is your sex life key, I want to hear I want to put it in your hand. If you can practice this every day, it may take you years. Because you need to, you need to act, the way you acted when you were pursuing your wife to marry her. That's what you need to do. You need to go back to dating your wife, you need to be going back to man I want to get laid. And the only way it's not an expectation anymore. It's not just an advance, it's a I got to work for this. And that work is emotional intimacy work. Because if you think about that drive you took when you were dating, and you just sat in the car, no, no phone, no interactions, and you talked for hours, you were fulfilling an emotional need for her. You need to get back to that. And so this done repeatedly, without expectation from you, Hey, I've been spinning all this time, you know, la la Come on, you know, or walk in without your pants, you know, on and doing helicopter, whatever you think is sexy, right? Without that garbage. I would, unless there's a physiological issue, which is very possible as well, I want you to very much understand that there's hormonal issues, which you need to talk about, you need to understand you need get tested for but without those things, elements in place, you will be a very sexually active couple, and you will be very sexually satisfied. Very, um, just experience, time doing it wrong time doing it right, helping other people get to that place. Emotionally, I've seen it over and over and over again is the golden ticket. Guys, I can almost promise you it works unless your wife has a physiological or emotional issue that is medical grade, or, or worse. So

Curt Storring 43:49

the title of this is going to have to be the golden key to a second better sex life or something. The most important episode ever. So right, you're absolutely Sorry. Go ahead.

Scott Rammage 43:59

There's, there's one other thing a couple recommended a book called between the sheets are no, no, no, no sheet music, sheet music, and it's actually by a Christian couple. And there's a lot of people that think it's a little too. I mean, they talk to the women about why they should be performing oral sex and how to do it. Like literally, I'm Kim and I read that and it was incredibly beneficial for both of us understanding some very different nuances in sex in the sexual relationship and the response of certain things we do and why we do them. So that's a hard one. Like I was like, Hey, Kim, I ordered this book, and I just put it over there. That was the that was it. I just put it over there. And then you know, like five months later, all of a sudden, I see you're reading it and I'm like, Okay, time for me to read it. And so, you know, don't just say hey, we need to read this there. You got to have the nuance and and the massaging of your message.

Curt Storring 44:56

Yeah, well, that's part of the leadership thing too, right. It's like I would Have a loved all the way along my journey to be like, Babe, you gotta do this. It's working. And I'm gonna, like make you do it. And it never would have been done like I know, because I've tried that. And it never works. But if you're like, I'm so excited about this, and I'm going to tell you about this and look at this thing I did. Oh, man, it's so good for me. And then leave it. Yeah. And eventually, almost every single time she's like, Hey, that thing you mentioned, I tried that it works. I'm like, wow, like, That's so awesome. Let's let's talk about that. But leading through nuance and patience, rather than trying to ram everything home. And man, we're getting really deep in the nuance and the innuendos right now, I guess. I'm still laughing about the helicopter thing. But me think that's

Scott Rammage 45:38

something man, I'm like, you know, things we do.

Curt Storring 45:42

So that doesn't work is that you're trying to stop doing that then. Okay, so I think we touched a lot on what I want to touch on anyway, which is like the family leadership role, guys, this whole conversation was family leadership. Okay, so we're not even going to go into that, because you just got, I'm honestly Dude, this is some of the most pumped up, I've been on a podcast, because and this is my ego talking. I'm like, I agree so hard with everything you're saying. And I love this, because guys are gonna hear it slightly differently than me or someone else, or whoever else you're listening to this is so important. Everything we just touched on, is not what people are talking about. It's always like, just the Alpha bro stuff, you know, and there's the Alpha bro stuff. There's the soft flowy, effeminate man stuff, nobody's talking about how to balance them. And this is the beauty this is what is true. This is what gives fruit I have found, is sitting in this balanced middle of granted masculinity, where you are a savage on one side, and you kill someone for your family, and then you come home, and they feel so safe because you're gentle, like men, that is it. That is how you lead and you have to know where you're going, how you're gonna get there, which Scott touched on, you got to know what to do with your kids, you got to know how to lead your wife and all of these things are based on like the firm foundation of values, moral framework, you just got to like this was a masterclass guys, and I want to make sure. Actually, you know what, I'll give you a couple of seconds to go into anything else that's coming up. So we don't just like cut this out. But I want to get into how to maybe do this for a guy who hasn't really experienced it before. And one of the best ways for me is community but I want to get to that in a second. So any last thoughts on this? Yeah, I

Scott Rammage 47:15

want to talk about Dad bods.

Curt Storring 47:19

Let's go we are getting canceled here. Let's

Scott Rammage 47:20

guess. Like, that's just BS. Literally, you need. You need to serve your wife through your body. And like, Look, you might have a disorder or something that prevents you being from being cut. I'm five foot six. I mean, everything's working against me. I'm a husky build. But look, I do the work. I'm in the gym, five days a week, absolute minimum. I work out probably 13 times a week. Very, very methodical. I still enjoy it. It's built in so engrained in my in my routine that it's it's it's a ritual, it's not going away, no matter what, whether I'm out there. So my wife comes home from the post office here and this is couple months ago, and she looks at me and she says thank you. And I'm like, what she goes, thank you. I'm like, okay, because I just got back from the post office. And I'm not sure men understand how to look like men anymore. She said that man boobs. No muscles carried themselves. womanly timid. unshaved I mean, I have a beard. But you know what, I mean, unkept. I mean, she just went on and on. And she was I find you incredibly sexy. It's not because it's because I do the work. It's because she knows I care about my body. One, the Bible tells me my body is a temple I'm serving this way. I'm serving her this way as well. But I'll tell you what, my boys aren't gonna have a bad bad dad, my son. like six months ago, my 18 year old, he had his shirt off, and my wife and I both like looked at each other. Like he looks like death. Like he looks like he was in like an encampment, like, every single spinal column was like, just and we'd never had luck with him working out. But we have lived that life. I've told them I don't feel like working out. I didn't feel like working out today. But I went and did it because I know that it makes a difference. We talk this is that communication thing. We've lived it. We've talked it and we've talked to the struggles of it. Since then, my son has picked up some programming. And he's literally getting ripped. Literally, like I it's not even the same body. My 14 year old a year ago said dad I want to start working out I'm like, great. Well, here we go. We're going to do three days. And he started showing up in the gym at 5:30am He's a middle schooler at this time, every single day, he's lifting weights, whether I'm there or not. This is because we have talked through the struggles. We've talked through the, the reasons why we do it. And they also see Kim admiring me for my fitness and me for her fitness. She's like, 7%, body fat, she's repped. She does videos for women. But like, they see the benefits. And this is what I'm talking about. You cannot let your fitness go. There's just zero excuse guys, I work so many hours a week right now. It's insane. I am burnt on every end of my calendar, I'm being honest with you. But I still work out once or twice every single day, and it always resets me. So I just think that the bad dad bod thing has to go away, you cannot give yourself excuses anymore. And look, it didn't take you three months to get there, it's going to take you just as long to get where you want to go. So overnight success is usually your five or six year plus journey. So I need you to have that over kind of overnight success.

Curt Storring 51:10

Yeah, man. excellent way to finish that off. Because, yeah, it's not. It's just not acceptable. I mean, there's no room for average as a dad and the husband, and when you are serving your wife like that. I don't think a lot of guys understand that. You know, I think that was the missing piece that not a lot of guys talked about. And I've I think this is one of the things that got me shadowbanned on Instagram, I said you should be able to a real man can benchpress his wife not run his kids. And I said something about a dad but not being acceptable. And they call that like insulting speech and banned me for a little while. So anyway, I'm good. Can't wait to share it. Can't wait to share this Instagram. Okay, so I want to touch on like a practical piece of doing this work. Because I did I spent so many years, like, I don't know, probably seven years alone doing the work. And I was like getting far and then slide back down and get Farsight back down. And it wasn't until I like actually started doing this with other men, that things changed. I know that you are a huge proponent of that. You've got the Facebook group, you've got your own groups, you've got your programs, you've got the the podcast. And I wonder if you want to just like talk about how to do this work as a man, especially those lone wolves out there who are like, Oh, no, I'll just do it myself. Like, okay, you'll get a little bit far, but you'll never make it all the way. Just FYI, I do want to just touch on this a little bit and the kind of the work you're doing in this space.

Scott Rammage 52:26

Yeah. So I, the entire reason I do what I do is so that other men don't make the mistakes that I made. Like, you know, you and I were on this mission to lay out a path of success for men. And last year, I had my first event and I knew the power of doing things together with other men. I think I under Miss estimated about 1,000,000% the growth and massive boost to their marriage, to their income to their relationships to their, what they're doing with their kids out of just spending committed time with other men talking about these things and doing cool stuff together. Like the the ROI on this is astounding. My first event I sat down, we were sitting around a fire pit, and we just got done eating and I pulled them all together, like kind of give them like the why I'm doing this and I talked, I gave my little speech. None of them were there to see me. They were there to tap into something bigger. And I was very raw with them. You know, I'd lost a friend to suicide who was supposed to be there. And I told them the why I do these things and where I want them to be. And I told them the buffalo story. And I was very, very direct. And we then I said I want you guys to share why you're here. And tell us a little bit about yourself and share why you're here. Immediately out of the gates on that that Fireside Chat. Boy, first guy, I don't want to be here. I looked for every single excuse to not get on the plane. I was trying to be late for the connection. I am scared to death to be sitting around a fire with 20 other guys that I don't know and be with you for three more days. But I love my wife. And I want to do right by my kids. And I know that I have to step out of my comfort zone. One after another after another. They all had a little bit different things they were saying. But most of the guy these guys had never met almost none of them had ever met they were stepping way outside of their comfort zone. gloves were off at that point that from that entire weekend. Incredible relationships were founded or created, formed, continue to form marriages were saved, men were doing things they should not have done, went home, told their wife went through the hell and now are living on a whole new level with their wife. And I'm not saying you're gonna go through hell if you come. But I'm saying, you're going to become the buffalo who's looking at that storm saying I can either walk away from it, and then be stuck in it for a long time, or just ignore it, and hope it never comes around. These are the issues between you and your wife, the way you're raising your kids, the things with work, not living up to your potential, or I can be the storm lawyer, and I can turn right into that storm. And I can go home and I can say, babe, we're doing this different from now on. And this is what men did. And it's insane. I still am getting messages. I'm still having conversations with these men, and more importantly, than anything that has to do with me, they are all talking on very, very intimate levels, helping each other through hardships, through marriage issues through kid frustrations through job changes. It's insane. Guys, if you want to level up, you have to do work with other men, you have to let go of your social armor, you have to like, let it down. You have to understand that the warrior who is accomplished and is a killing machine, if you looked at his armor, it's beat to hell. It's been knocked on, it's dented, it's scratched, it's not shiny. That's because that guy has been to war. And here we are, we're pretending we have these nice Shining Armor on and everything in my life is okay. And that's just not true. Not one of you is living the life that you think you can live until you show other men your battle wounds, and let them show you yours. And then step into that. That place where you become a more refined warrior, a more refined husband, a more refined leader, Father, employer, whatever it is, you are not living up to your potential. And I do believe that the fastest way there is community

Curt Storring 57:19

100% agree I could not have said any of that better. And, man, thank you for that. And that's been true in my life. I've sent talked about a lot. This was the thing. This was a thing, community of men, intentional men who are like, Hey, man, like how are you? And not just like, Hey, bro, how's it going? It's like, no, no, no. How are you doing? What can I help you? What are you struggling with? And being able to share that with other men literally changed my life. Every single guy that I've ever sat in a group with, literally changed his life, he's willing to show up and do the work. I know you've done this. You've talked about this. You've hosted these now. And guys, if you want all these things Scott just said, and you're not sure where to start? Why don't you just go hang out with Scott. And I swear this is not trying to pump. I'm not trying to pump you up right now. But I want to make sure because I know you probably wouldn't have said yourself, guys, Scott is doing another one of these events. And I I don't think I've ever had anyone on the show who I'm like, oh, you should go do their thing. Because like, whatever I got my own things, I want you to do my things. In this case, this is a fully Curt Storring data work approved, I want you to consider attending the next event that Scott does, because he's for real, okay. He's literally a personal mentor to me, and has had a massive impact on my life. So I just want to give that vote of confidence. Because I know from experience that this will change everything for you. If you will stick around for another two minutes, please listen, I Scott, I'm gonna ask you to just give some details. I don't even know the details. It's sort of happening when my wife is going to be you know, giving birth, etc. So would you would you please let guys know where they could join? Because yeah, I would I just want to support you, man.

Scott Rammage 58:59

Yeah, I you know, I've been begging you to come but it's kind of hard to fight that. So, and I want to be really clear, don't wait on anything. What you need to do is literally, and I'm gonna do this because you need to find a program or community immediately right now. This is not something I offer. By the way. I offer events, Kurt offers community and the stuff that you can take action on right away. So like your ROI, your financial ROI, I do not know how it will look but your financial ROI will be higher return on investment, by the way, will be higher than what you spend if you win and all in on both of us. I don't know how to like prove it, but I know it I know it that I know it that I know it. So do the thing. Put your fear aside put your fear of money, your fear of loss, your fear of what your wife will say your fear of what your bros will say whatever it is the fear of being vulnerable to other people. and join whatever Kurt is offering. And I know he's got an amazing program and book, your trip to my event in June. So the first week of June, the website is the brotherhood of fatherhood.com. You can go to Events page. And I did two things. One, it's not cheap. You got to work to get there. It's a lot cheaper than all my mentors are telling you should be. We're that's a lot cheaper than doing nothing and losing your family. Yes, we're jam packing it full of really cool stuff. We're gonna shoot guns, we're gonna roll jujitsu, we're gonna go on hikes and rocks, you get a bunch of sponsor stuff. It's really cool. We got cool guys coming to talk. And these are guys, I don't pay, I don't pay people to come there they come because they want to feed in to other men. So do that, it's also a hard place to get to. So you really like if you come I automatically have a level of respect for you. You did the work, I could make it super cheap, super easy to come to. And we get a bunch of schmuck. So if you're not Schmuck, or you don't want to be a schmuck, you're gonna come and you're gonna join these things, because it's going to make the difference in your life, in your marriage, and your finances all of it.

Curt Storring 1:01:13

Well said, Okay, we'll put that link in the show notes. Dad.Work slash podcast if you guys want to check that out and not be a schmuck. I love that. I'm gonna start using that on on the calls of the guys. Hey, do you want to be a schmuck? If not gonna join me and Scott? No, man, I really appreciate that. And I'm feeling right now. Like, this was one of my favorite chats that I've had on here. Because, yeah, there's just like fire all the way through. And very actual content from someone who's done that and been there and like, you guys are asking for more dads with teenagers and 20 year olds, please. And here we go. So Scott, man, thank you very much for being on I appreciate everything that you share with me, between us. And on this podcast. Like this was just no holds barred. So go check out everything Scott has to offer. He also has a podcast, brotherhood fatherhood, and I'll link all that in the show notes again, data org slash podcast, man, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the dad work podcast. That's it for this episode. But if you would like to stay in touch between weekly episodes, why don't you go over to Instagram and follow me there because I drop a number of things throughout the week that are related to what we talked about on this podcast, but usually go a little bit deeper, provide some tips you can find me on Instagram at dad work dot Kurt. That's da d w o RK dot c u r t. And please, if you have been getting something out of this podcast, if it has touched you if it has improved your marriage, your parenting or your life, would you please leave a quick review on Apple or Spotify. leave a rating. If you have a few extra seconds, leave a quick review. That's the best way that we can get this work in the hands of more fathers. And I truly believe that we change the world, one father at a time because each father that parents better that loves better raises children who do the same. And in just a couple of generations. I feel like we could be living in a world much better than the one we live in today. Your review will help along that path. I thank you so much for being here to listen until next week. We'll see you then.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai