Speaker 1 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

Hey guys, welcome back to the dad work podcast. This is Curt Storring, your host, the founder of dad work and we're gonna jump into this episode pretty quick because we're trying some a little bit different. Here's what we're doing. I just invited Scott Ramage, back on the podcast. He is literally a mentor of mine. He's been on the podcast a couple times. And I was like, man, let's just do a show where we bring some topics. And we just chat about it. See what comes up, take some side tours, whatever comes up is what comes up and we'll just have a little bit of a conversation of banter. See what comes of that. And you know what, guys, I think that it actually worked pretty well. We're gonna do maybe another one of these, maybe a few more of these. Who knows, I might do this with some more guys we've had on the podcast a few times as well. But anyway, let me know what you think about this. If you are in Spotify, there should be a little q&a thing below this episode where you can just fill out like, like it didn't like it, whatever you want to say. If you're on Apple or elsewhere, just send me a DM on Instagram or send me an email. And yeah, we'd love to hear what you think. Anyway, let's get into this show with Scott Ramage. And myself, here we go. All right, Scott, we're here. This is the first time we're going to do this for dad work, but we're just going to shoot the breeze man, we're gonna get into some topics. You guys met Scott before. He's been on the podcast bunch of times. But I just want to like hear a topic from you. I'm gonna share a topic and then we'll just chat about and I think that's going to be super valuable for guys. Because we're just two dads, two husbands different stages of life. And I think it's gonna be a lot of value. So first of all, man, thank you. Actually, guys, I'm gonna be transparent. We just tried to do this didn't go well. And I did something I don't normally do. Which is I was like, Scott, this doesn't feel good. We start again. So I don't know. What did you think? Was that a good call for me?

Scott Rammage 2:31

I don't know. I think it was a good call for you personally, because I know you. And I think it's a big deal. What you just did was a big deal. Like, I didn't feel the same way as you because I'm just having a conversation. But I am not men. Yeah,

Curt Storring 2:44

I just got in my head. And I was like, Oh, I talked too much. In the beginning. I'm thinking about this. It's not, I was gonna go. So anyway, this is round two, and it's gonna be way better. But let's just get into topic. And I want to talk specifically about the thing that is most impactful for me right now, which is this idea of observation versus judgment. And I know for a fact, my wife is doing this right now. A guy in my program just talked to me about it. A friend I met on the weekend is going through this right now. And it is the reality that as we look around the world, man things are things are looking rough in terms of human beings and the decisions they're making. Now, I am gonna say it from the outside looking in, you might call me judgmental. I don't I really don't think or want that to be my heart. Because I've worked a lot on that I have been judgmental. I've put myself on a pedestal. The Lord has really humbled me on that. And yet, I can't look around and go like, Oh, that's fine. They can do that thing that's ruining their lives and ruining society and not making me any friends. But like, Man, I don't know where my responsibility lies between. I'm seeing you do a terrible thing out there. And it's driving me nuts. I see men not leading I see coaches in a coaching position, not doing the thing and inspiring young boys. I'm like, what a wasted opportunity. I don't know what this is. Is it me being an a hole? Should I just love people? Am I allowed to sort of say you're not doing good enough? But then what do I do? Because I feel lost? I feel like man, I'm I am operating on a very high level. And I'm okay saying that. But not a lot of other people are. And it doesn't have to be as good as me or perfect or anything like that. But it's like people aren't even trying. So anyway, that's a an impassioned way of saying, Am I just judging? And am I being an asshole? Or like, is there some level of this where I'm allowed to be like, No, those are my standards, and you guys need to, you know, be better. Anyway, what do you think?

Scott Rammage 4:43

I want to compartmentalize this in two different areas. It one is observation of the world happening around you and one is who you allow in your circle. And so when you grow when you get to a place where you are improving and you're doing it you're operating at a level that is in alignment with God is alignment with your own core values. It's alignment with how you want to move your family forward, you're gonna see all the crap out there. Like I go to a football game and I see how a coach is talking to the what he says to the parents. And then the way he talks to the kids, and then the kids swearing on the field and then praying afterwards, I'm like, my head wants to explode, I want to run down there and rip the guy's head off and say, You are the worst leader in the world. This is a you know, like, so like, I totally, my wife and I were horrible will be like sitting here going like, their leadership sucks. And it would be so much more effective if they did X, Y, and Z. And don't they realize that they aren't responsible for fixing that person, they need to dis fix themselves. And this, like, that's observation, and it is judgmental. Sure, we're judging them, we're judging them based on what we know. Because we have a different level of operation, we have a different level of wisdom, we have a different level of, we have a higher standard to what we what we live by. So the more you raise your own, the more everyone else is going to become a parent. Now, the thing that we have to realize here, there's there's twofold one, everyone's human, they might be looking at you and they might be elevated in another place and saying that guy's dingdong he doesn't know what the heck he's doing. So you have to understand that the shoot goes on the other foot as well. And to what I say about what I say about how do we impact the world? is the same thing that I say is how do we impact our marriage? How do we impact our kids? How do we impact our business partners, our clients, we control the controllables? And what is that? What can we control, it's our self. So lead by example, lead by example, lead by example, lead by example. And then when it's something like a football coach, if things are going wrong, then you have some decisions to make. Because I'm not going to stand by quietly if my son is out there being told this is how you do it. But then you do it differently, and you're rewarded for doing it differently. And then you're living a different life than your because that's a teaching moment. For me, I'm gonna have that conversation with my son. And I might have a conversation with the coach, just as an example. So you will observe more when you are at a higher operating at a higher level. And now it's you use that to decide who you let into your life at the next level. Now, you need to be around those people. You need to be a light on a hill for those people that has How do you expect them to be better?

Curt Storring 7:18

Right? Okay, so that's, I think the thing here is like, I'm letting it bother me so much. Because I'm like, everywhere I look, every time I go to the grocery store, I'm like, you eat that. That's not even food. And then I see like these, I'm gonna say like skinny fat hasn't been in the gym his entire life. Not motivating, not inspiring, not challenging the young boys in this camp, not doing the things that I go like, bro, just try. And like, it doesn't impact me other than like, I see these children not getting what they might have got. I see my son not being pushed. I see other people make terrible choices when they could just do better. And I think what you just said there, which is control the controllables, which is me, like, okay, that that feels important for this conversation. But I just let it get to me, man. I'm just complaining about it. And I don't know if there's like another way and yes, because here's the other thing too. I want to ask a couple guys locally, who are very generous, you know, a little bit older than me. Very amazing when it comes to meeting people. And like in Tim Hortons, a coffee shop up here with people who they just met in this place. It's not a great sort of neighborhood. Joe's giving and giving and giving. I'm like, Man, I do not have that heart. And so I've been praying like, Lord, give me the heart to love people. Because someone also said to me recently, you can always tell who loves the Lord because they love people. And I'm like, oh, man, like, I want that. I just don't feel like I got that. So putting that into this whole like judgmental observation thing. I don't know what to do. And maybe it's just be satisfied with being me and lead the way and be that light. But is there anything else I should be doing here? Like, can I drop this somehow I'm just so angry about it

Scott Rammage 9:08

if it's causing you anger, so I would say raise the rent in your head. That's the saying that we use around here. So like your your time worrying is it's just not worth it. And so one of the things that eats at me like crazy Kurt is when people leave there. I don't know if you guys call them buggies or carts or their grocery cart Rice was what we call them. And I'll watch somebody literally just move it up to another car and just like propped against the car, get in their car and leave. And like okay, so how can I control this? If I have the opportunity I rush over there and I get behind them with the car because I'm and I make it a point that I'm putting it away? Probably maybe not the best decision but I'm like, they're gonna see me like half the work to fix their problem and they're probably not going to think any about anything about it but feel a little better. But the other side of that is like the other day A we pull up to Walmart, there's like nobody in the parking lot and there's a cart, somebody left in a stupid spot. Nobody's looking and I walked past it just a teeny bit. And the thought hit my head, how you do anything is how you do everything. And so I walked back, and I got the cart. And I put it in. And I just think that instead of focusing on the anger of what other people doing, we focus on, like, leveling ourselves up, just continually leveling, leveling ourselves up, we should be leading when, like, literally, there's no personal gain. And there's a real fine line between you have to get to a place Kurt, where you feel energy from helping people and being kind to people that really don't deserve your kindness. That's a really, so that can be an energy stealer. And so that really means it's time to work on myself. And I think what what will happen is if you if you act in an extreme kind manner to somebody who is acting way out of alignment with you know, they're buying, there was a dad at Costco the other day, he had like, five, the most sugary surlis you could with his little daughter sitting in there, and had like three different bags of chips, and a mic. I told my wife, I'm like, That is the problem with society, right? They're like, and it's it's super judgmental, but is it? Can I do anything about it in that circumstance? No. And so then it's like, is it worth renting any space in my head? No, Scott raised the rent that is above your that is not something you're going to make a difference in in this moment. What can I make a difference in I can talk about it on my podcast, which will have a slow trickle out. I can. I can, I can live it out loud. I can put things in my cart. And I've started to notice people who I'm like, ooh, they shopped on the outside of the shopping or the grocery store. Look at that. meat, vegetables, fruit, eggs, milk. All right, we're good. Right? But yeah, we have to put our, our focus and energy into what gives us energy. But I think what will happen over time, is if you learn to smile at someone you can't relate with, if you learn to make work really hard on making a personal connection, if I would have walked past that guy, and like, oh, it's really tight in here, I hope you have an amazing day, I would have gotten away energized from that, and not had a conversation about his car. But maybe thinking okay, I and I infused a little bit of happiness and newness or joy into his day.

Curt Storring 12:36

Yeah, okay, man, this is okay. It makes me notice that it's a control thing for me. Like, yeah, I could do this. If you just listen to me, I would be like the best at if you were a video game character, we would be on all star mode, and you would win, but you're not. And it's so frustrating, because I can see how to make a great and I think what you just said about like leading, I witnessed this thing on the weekend. And then I brought it to my guys in the group on Monday. And that's exactly what I said, I was like, let us be those leaders. So that when the kids are in whatever they're doing, and when they're seeing men around around them, they're seeing all the leader, wow, this guy is different. What is that? So I told him and yet here I am going like, well, it's still frustrating me, I still wish people made better choices. And I suppose what you just said, is here we are doing this, hopefully, we can inspire some guys, hopefully we can change some lives. Hopefully we can do that. And any life that we touch outside of our own, I think I should be grateful for that rather than, Oh, it's never enough. I think that shift in me just not controlling everyone's outcome, even though like Man, my kids are gonna have to grow up in this world. And everyone's just not putting boundaries up. So I think that is it for me is just like, man, you can control you and you just be that light for other people. Thank you. That's awesome.

Scott Rammage 13:54

It's you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. But you can make that water super enticing. And so like, yeah, we're leading, we're showing people the way we're doing it. But how do we take them from like them pulling away from the thing? Like, yes, they're seeing it and pulling away? Is we make it super enticing. So how do we make the right thing super enticing? We look really good. We perform really well. We have a smile on my face, we treat others really well. We give we make exorbitant amounts of money and give most of it away or bless others so much that everybody notices. That's how we make that water super enticing. Then people are like, how do I get what that guy has? And they start doing they'll start emulating what you're doing. The anger again is a control thing. I can tell you that all day long. And I've been there and there's parts of this in my life. So my kids are still my son is still in public school. So basically public school is is an equation for eternal fresh ration. It is such an incredible cluster F, I can't even and so like for me, it's like good, you know? And yeah, it's something I can't control. I can control it, but I could pull my son from the school and I could make decisions. But I'm not for very specific thought out, well discussed prayed over reasons. And so then I can't control the way the school is going to act. But I can do everything within my reason to be the best father and have the best son and lead through examples and rise above. So I don't know if that kind of No,

Curt Storring 15:39

I'm curious what the are you willing to share those reasons why you want to keep them in there? Because that was one of those things that that's one of the things I actually had talked to someone in the states other day and I told them what's going on in the schools here. And they're like, even my Democrat voting so and so would think that's crazy. Are you for real? So I imagine it's a little bit different than the states, especially in Texas, maybe maybe it's not, but like, it's it's pretty bad here. What were some of those considerations? And how do you make those decisions? Like what what's more important there for you guys.

Scott Rammage 16:09

So that, you know, that's really interesting. I was public teacher for years, 13 years. And when I was a public teacher, I had control, I saw the inside, I can put my kids in certain classes, I could align them with certain teachers, I was if something wasn't going right, I went directly to the source, I'd actually get feedback, I'd actually get an ear listening to me. There was a lot of control over that situation. We moved to Texas to Texas schools are very, a lot more conservative, very well funded, very high operating where we're at a really great curriculum. And then things just keep going downhill and downhill. So we're so engrained at this point. We're so like, Corbin is going to be 16 this year, right? So for at this point, it's really tough to pull him out. Now, if he were in fifth grade right now, no brainer. He were in sixth grade going into sixth grade, no brainer. He's not in, he's not ingrained in that middle school. If you were in middle school, I even think at that point, he would have been totally cool with coming out. Now he's so ingrained in the in the culture of the band at the school, that and he has a leadership position. And then literally you are an outcast if you come in just for band because that is an option. And we've talked about this, you know, now he's wasting his day. But we are making that choice because he says no, I would rather do this, I know I'm going to be fine. I know I'm going to crush it over here. And unfortunately, this is so sad, Kurt, his opinion is I'm just gonna sit through the class, I'm gonna get through it. He told me last year, he's like, I get about five minutes of instruction, and the rest of it just me waiting for all the idiots to shut up and stuff to start. And they're teaching, you know, they're they're just dumbing it down so much. It's, It's so insane. And I'm like, look. So what is my job that my job is to tell him every failure, every success, every thing I can about how business works, and about how I function and how I'm seeing great success and why I'm seeing success and what failures I've had, because that is so much more powerful than anything they're telling them in school. You know, I saw a little magnet the other day, it's like something about teaching, budgeting in school. But instead we taught parallelograms to prepare for parallelograms you know, season because there is no parallelogram season, right? Like sure it can be used in certain things. But it is an exorbitant waste of time. But right now I'm looking at the social psychological type learning opportunities. And here's the opportunity that he's getting there is he's learning an incredible amount of critical thinking skills, because he's loaded up with Bs all day long as he comes home and he says this happened. I'm like, What do you think about that? And I let him talk about it. Then this happened? What do you think about that? And then they sewed CNN on to CNN one, which is educational, CNN, which is basically propaganda. And he's like, Oh, this is what they said. I'm like, How do you feel about that? I am listening. He's being exposed. I'm listening, we are modeling. And I'm like, this kid is on the right path. And it worked for my older kid who's now 19. So I see the benefits of it, because it's a guided life experience. But you can do that homeschooling too. But at this point, it's so late in the game that we're okay with it. But man, it was everything in me today to say, oh my gosh, can we just get them out of here. So, and it starts at school starts Wednesday here. So it's in two days.

Curt Storring 19:39

Okay, man. Well, that it takes a follow up though. Right and I think I think that's awesome though. If you're there and you're that like impact impactful in his life. You know, all the rest that kind of stuff can be put aside. And I think you're right about the age thing. I never thought about that before because you know, we got 23 and zero. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Anyway, then. Thanks for that, man. Are there any, you got some topics you wanna dive into? I think I'll top your head.

Scott Rammage 20:05

You know, I want to talk about something I was listening to Jordan Peterson talked about. And I, you know, there might be some people listening guys out there, if you're entrepreneurial, I want to give you permission for some things. There's some obvious observations I've made. And this may not hit with anybody, it may not hit with you, Kurt. But I've been thinking a lot about me growing up, and I'm running my own businesses now. You know, I would say financially successful business successful family successful. And I want to do, I don't know if this is gonna fall on him, but he's serious. It falls on one guy's ears, I'm gonna be really happy. My entire life, I was what we'd call like, a soft authority. I did not like authority. Someone tell me what to do. It was not gonna go over. Well, I wasn't hardcore anti authority. So did you ever feel that way?

Curt Storring 20:58

I feel that way, every moment of the day. Okay.

Scott Rammage 21:01

So I want to give you some freedom, as Jordan Peterson that says that is a mark psychologically, of what makes a good entrepreneur. And so I was like, you know, my son's a little oppositional, not to me, but to other people like the way the systems work, he'll, he'll bring it up. And I just looked at him and said, This is awesome. He's like, Well, what, like, you notice all of these things that aren't when they're someone is in leadership, and they're doing things in a way and you kind of oppose it, you know what that means? He's like, No, I'm like, that's a marker of a good business person. That's a marker of someone who can be an entrepreneur, that is one of the things that they find. And so I wanted to say this to your listeners, if you find yourself oppositional, like, be respectful and get it under control, but understand that that's a that's a power. It's a superpower. You know, what else is a superpower? Add?

Curt Storring 21:53

Go on, I talked to a lot of guys who are like, oh, man, I've got ADHD, and I can't do this thing. And I'm like, I think that might be an excuse. But it's

Scott Rammage 22:00

only an Excel guess. Let's go. So having interviewed so many of my stories that sell podcasts, which isn't running right now, but having interviewed so many entrepreneurs, and being in some really high level, masterminds with business owners, 80% of them are add at, at least. And what I've noticed is when ADHD is actually just add. So there's some new things about that. But so I'm just gonna use the term add to be Attention Deficit Disorder, it is a superpower. Because typically, if your attention deficit disorder, you will also microfocus, like, focused solely in on one thing, and then allows you this opportunity to learn a ton of things. So I would just say embrace it, guys, like stop fighting it. And then once you harness that, you have a superpower. And I don't, I wanted, I wanted to give somebody I wanted one. If you feel add, and you've been using excuse stop, it's actually an advantage. So find out where that thing helps you and dig into it that way. And I am seeing guys, multi million dollar businesses, you know, 5 million revenue, 11 million revenue, 100 million revenue, and they are add off the charts, but they learn to focus it and funnel it. And they're hard to talk to because they're all over the place. But I don't know, it was just something on my mind. Have you noticed this at all?

Curt Storring 23:28

Man, you know what I don't even like, I don't know, I don't think I have any things like that. And maybe I do, maybe I'm just like, not thinking about it. But the thing that that brought to mind was the general idea of starting business. Because for me the answer to a lot of guys that I talked to him like, bro, this could be like, most of your problems would go away. If you would take the risk to do a business, which isn't doesn't need to be that like technical. You can go start a service business, honestly. But they're talking about like, oh, I work too much. My wife has to work. And I'm just so stressed out. And you know, I don't feel like I have a freedom and I'm under someone's thumb and all the rest of this kind of stuff. I'm like, Okay, you start today, right? Like that is as simple as it is for me. And I love telling guys, what to turn this into a business. Do you give guys the same sort of advice when it comes to like, Just do it? Or do you like doesn't have to depend on a certain type of man? Like what what is your thought in terms of? I'm gonna say most people, being entrepreneur, able, maybe is the right word. Like, I don't know, what do you think about that?

Scott Rammage 24:29

If you have the itch, you need to scratch it. Okay, too many people have not listened to themselves. They've lived in this box. And then what the world says is like, somebody that is very significant in my life that texted me said, Hey, I know you're doing really good in business. And it's really cool. And I know you keep you know, you're always changing. Well, I'm always growing. I'm always improving the service. I'm not changing. But you know, I just hope someday you settle down and get a steady career. I'm like, Are you kidding? I'm like, why Drupal earning what I could earn if I worked for somebody. But I want I say that because it's, it's the it's a cultural view of the so that's what guys are fighting, when they have this itch to start something they're fighting that narrative that you want something secure. Well, this secure mean, earning a 10th of what I could my potential is like really this secure my wife having to work in a job she may not want is secure, you know living month to month like I just don't get it because? Or is it just because you have an IRA or whatever the Bs is that everybody gets when you work for a job, whatever, like and then then there's the view of like, well, I can never retire. I don't know about you, Kurt. I have no intentions of ever retiring. That sounds like hell.

Curt Storring 25:42

Yeah, that same thing. Yeah. So

Scott Rammage 25:44

I'd say scratch that itch. I have a speech that I give to entrepreneurs. It's called ready fire aim. And because so many people overthink getting started, okay, you want to business, do something you don't like do something that needs to be done. Start mowing your neighbor's lawn, and then starting to mowing another neighbor's lawn. And it sucks. It's horrible work. And then lo another neighbor's lawn. Learn how to use that weed eater. Learn how to use the mower, get the right mower, get it to a system, build that system. And all of a sudden, now you're selling because people are seeing the results. Okay, you're selling but you can't fulfill your work and your ass off. Yes, you got to work your ass off, you got to do a ton hours when you start a business. Yes, you're sacrificing time with your family. But when you're with your family be with your family. The next step is then ooh, I need to find someone who can help me mow lawns. And then you realize, oh, hey, look, if I keep finding people to mow lawns, and do weed eating, I can sell more. And if I sell more, I can make more. And I can pay more people to do the lawns. Guess what, you will now have a business. And I would guarantee you if you can do lawn, and then offseason work like snow blowing or whatever it might be depending on your area. If you can do those two things. You can you can have zero skills, you can learn it as you go. And I know, I know a guy who sold his landscaping business for 11 million last year. And and I know guys doing eight figures that own landscaping businesses. So where did they start, they just started mowing the lawn. And so it's ready fire aim now, that means get an idea, just start doing it fail forward. And if you don't know what it is start somewhere and something else will come up. And that's what I did. I just started doing things. And would I have ever told somebody? Oh, you know, I'm making a living placing virtual, you know, over basically a personnel service, you know, like a hiring agency, right? Which is that light my fire? No, you know, what lights my fire though, what lights my fire is giving other business owners a lot of leverage and the messages I get from them about how they're winning and how amazing things are going. And the lives that were changing, or the people getting work that lights my fire, I would have never guessed it. And it's been incredibly profitable. And it just started with me finding a problem and figuring it out. And so fire just start doing,

Curt Storring 28:01

man, the so if you guys are interested in that, number one, if you can start an online business, I think it's awesome. It's something to be said about working with your hands though. And if you guys are interested in that go look up sweaty startups. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. But the whole thing is like how to make a blue collar startup, basically. But automate it and make it awesome and crush the competition and all that kind of stuff with again, very little so called skill and I don't mean that pejoratively. But it also gonna go ahead,

Scott Rammage 28:30

I was gonna say the people that are crushing it in any home services are usually it's someone who knows how to mow lawns and starts of service or knows how to work on HVAC or whatever, right? They have no customer service, they have no structure in place. So if you're good at customer service and structure, you can go in and do that and you'll crush everyone, because you'll grow and you'll deliver much higher level than them. And so you have even if you're like that's what you're in now, and you're really good at that you're like why can't run this? Oh, you're you're way up ahead of everyone else, because you're in the business of making people happy. And when they're happy, they're customers and when their customers happy customers they share to other people and then you have more happy customers. So yeah, go ahead and go on. But yeah, like it's pretty startups thing.

Curt Storring 29:12

The Okay, so this kind of leads into one of the topics that I had here that and guys in case you're listening, we're just like, I got a couple of topics. Scott's got a couple of topics, we're just you know, riffing on this, but that it brings to mind this one. And I'm gonna lay it out like this. So hobbies versus family time, the time that it takes to do something as a trade off between getting more skills and having brotherhood and what I mean by that is, I often think about I mean, I don't my life regularly, and I have a fun component or an adventure component. And some I've literally put it simultaneously zero and 10 at the same audit. And what I mean by that is I don't do a lot of hobbies I don't do a lot of adventure. I don't do a lot of external things that would so called Phil my you know what ever caught my adventure my fun cup. And some people would be like, Oh, dude, you've got to go and do more. You've got to go play a sport. You've got to do this. You got to do that. But I'm looking around going okay, first of all, in a that season for me right now I got four kids in a business and homeschool, blah, blah, blah. But even if it were, I just have so much fun building business and just being with my family and having like, a couple of friends, that personally I don't feel like I need it. But I did have this thought in the back of my head, like, is that a cop out? Should I actually be like trying to do something outside the house? Because it gives me a chance to meet people and maybe learn a skill? Or like, do you think it's legit just personally, to enjoy your business and your family enough that you don't need huge external activities? Where do you fall in that?

Scott Rammage 30:44

Yes. So this is really interesting. I gave up mountain biking and I'll get back into it again. But I've gave up mountain biking because you got an hour drive to the spa, you got you know, equipment set up, you got a couple hour ride another half hour hour home than shower. Four hours is gone. I love doing it. So what did I do? I go rock, I throw pack on my back, I throw on a pair of shoes, and I just go, Okay, same physical outlet still out in nature, the onboarding and off boarding time is way faster, I can fit it in 30 minutes, I can do two hours. It's way more controllable. All right, where I really have a problem with guys doing hobbies is that I think for them, it's an escape rather than a growth opportunity. And so if you're using it as an escape from the real world, shame on you get over yourself and figure your stuff out. Like if you go golf for five hours because golfing takes forever. Stop it. That's ridiculous. If you have kids, and you have a wife, and you're not spending time with him and your golfing instead, I don't care how much you like it. compartmentalize it because you're stealing from your family. And I speak from this from doing it for years. So get over yourself, you stop being an asshole, and do what you need to do. Now. Could you go hit some balls at the at the range? Yes. Could you go golf? Yeah, like do it once a week, not every night. And so I think there's like there's this control aspect, but I think most guys are just trying to escape. And escape is dangerous. So I would really question yourself why you're doing what you're doing. My hobbies right now are working out, hanging out with my family and working. And I am as happy as can be, and I go to. So then what do I do I have a men's event so that I have at least, you know, five, six days, maybe 10 days a year where I have concentrated time with my with other men to sharpen my sword. And that is how I do it. It's concentrated. I have calls that I can do in the day, where I'm talking with other men, I'm still sharpening my sword. I go to church, I involved involved in those things. But I'm not escaping. And I would say most hobbies for most men is an escape. And if you're escaping, that's like using porn because it's easier to do that than to you know, foreplay with your wife all week long. It's a shortcut. And it's ridiculous. So I would call any guy how like, and then there's the the young person's thing and guys, you might relate to this. And I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, but it's really stupid for you bring your wife tried to bring your wife into your, your sports and your hobbies. She's gonna pretend she likes it. She probably not. Like if she doesn't go do it on her own. Guess what? She's doing it just to appease you. So right now, if she's golfing with you, or if she's out, four wheeling for you say Hey, babe, would you ever want to just do this with your friends? And if she says no, do you wanna do it all by yourself? No, I would really ask you, she's doing it to be with you. And there's way better ways to be with her. And so I tried that with mountain biking with my wife. It was stupid. Like she was totally okay with it. But it was never quality time. And it's really selfish. And I think I think a lot of guys do that. Do you think a lot of guys do that?

Curt Storring 34:01

Oh, yeah. Okay, so the whole idea behind this. I agree. 100%. And I think that a lot of this so called hobbies today are escape. As you mentioned, I talk to a lot of guys. I mean, porn is a hobby, I guess. But it's become with the amount of time that people do it. Like, I was shocked dude. Like, oh, yeah, you know, a couple times a day. I'm like, what? Anyway, but SEO games is another big one. There's a man in our group who I'm gonna get on this podcast. He's got, you know, just a little bit more to go before he wants to, like, you know, do his so called big reveal. He's losing a ton of weight. Anyway, the call I had with him, I made a post about video games. And I just want to like, I just want to sucker punch someone here just in case you do play video games still, and it's taking away from your family. And again, it's one of those things that Scott just said, if it is actually getting in the way and you're not just fooling yourself going, Oh, no, it's fine. You know, again, get over yourself. Because I've made this post about you know, don't waste your time playing video games, go and build yourself up in the real world. rolled in. I think I was thinking about that the other day, like, am I looking at anything on my phone? What can I possibly want to be doing? No, I just want to go back to work, and then go back to family. But if you're doing the video game thing, this guy got on the call with me. And immediately afterwards, he was driving to goodwill to drop off his Xbox, while he'd been gaming for like his whole life. But he saw in that moment, that it was just an escape mechanism for him to feel emotionally Well, or not to feel emotionally at all. And so I would challenge guys, if you are really deep into any hobby, like me, and even, there's guys who, like collect cards? And I'm like, what? It's just childish, in my opinion. No, it's

Scott Rammage 35:40

not your opinion. It's reality. It's childish. That's

Curt Storring 35:44

because sometimes I'm like, Oh, I don't know the story. And that's true. I don't. And if you have a family, and maybe I want to see like how hardcore you are on this, but like, if you got a family, I'm gonna say the answer is almost always to die to yourself and do something for them. How do you think about that? So me? Okay, you just said, You're condensing in a few days every year in this sort of event? And of course, you're gonna go out to do a church thing? Or of course, you're going to like see a friend here and there. But how do you judge? Man? Am I taken away from my family? Or will this do good things for my family? Because I'll come back and rich? Is there like a decision making matrix? I know, yeah, but values a lot, or is there something else?

Scott Rammage 36:24

So I take my boys wherever I can. So they're involved, right? I mean, we're not at all possible. And then also, it's got to be an enriching activity. For me, it's got to be something that I'm going to come back and be able to give more to my family.

Curt Storring 36:37

Okay, and so let's just give that to her based on what it is, okay? Hey,

Scott Rammage 36:40

if I if I were to go on a three day mountain biking trip, I'm gonna go with people who are going to lift me up, and I'm going to come back and I'm going to be come back better for my family. This is a really interesting twist on this, though, just recently, I was like, you know, I don't have any, like idle time, hobbies. And what I found myself doing is just like, I'm on the automatic, go to social media and look at it. And I've really been trying to audit myself on that I'm doing a ton. And part of that is because I build business through my interactions, and it's very intentional. But I've almost like, gosh, do I need to like buy a really high level, this is real, this real conversation? High level, like one of those advanced Lego kits and put it on my table. And like, when my wife wants to watch TV, or just chill out? I don't want to I don't I don't do that. Well, so what if I had? So here's how I'm framing this? What if I don't want to do Legos? But what if I bought a really high level Lego set, and sat there so that my mind is free? There's no and I'm just doing this thing, and I can have conversation. And so that's where I've decided, like, there's certain like, I'm trying to find something that I can do in one spot, while she's watching TV or trying to have a conversation with me where I can keep my phone away. So I'm looking for like that habits, like replacing a habit with something more positive. So for me, that's things I'm doing strategically to be more engaged as strategic for me to grow in my relationship with my wife, and not just ah, and be lost. Because that is such a horrible path, you can go down with the with the phone. So I think you really just have to evaluate what the outcome of what you're doing is. And while you're doing it, what's the motivation? What's the outcome? What's the benefit? And hobbies can turn into great money making opportunities. I will tell you this, though, they will ruin your love for that hobby.

Curt Storring 38:31

Oh, yeah. Like shopping? Yeah. All right. Okay. So the optimization, this is what I always go back to is like, what am I optimizing for? I always ask myself that. And I think it's awesome in most situations. But in life and family, I think it's very safe to say, I'm optimizing for a great marriage, to raise great kids and to have longevity or to build a legacy or whatever that thing is. But if you're in a family as a father, and you're leading, and you're not optimizing for them, I think that's probably the the red flag in my eyes. Yes. Yeah. Okay, let me we got a few minutes. Let's jump into another thought here. So, yeah, I think the last one that I was going to talk about is just in terms of like, behavior in children, and how to instill in them good habits. So for me, I'm just gonna go through what I think and then I want you to talk about this. We don't use like sticker boards or reward boards or anything like that. We just show them and tell them what to do and why to do it. And then expect them to do the right thing. But I have talked to a lot of parents who are like, man, we just can't get them to do this. And they're fighting about stuff. And so we've just had, you know, whatever the sticker board is, or if you get X amount of stickers, you get a reward. Maybe I'll just leave it at that. I think I can go with that. Do the right thing for the right reason. I teach the kids to do the same way. But what did you guys do?

Scott Rammage 39:57

So no sticker boards, no rewards. But here, and I have to give my wife a credit for this because there's a little mature in this but like literally set boundaries, black and white, no gray area and uphold them to the utmost utmost your integrity, you have to, it doesn't matter how inconvenient is for you, it doesn't matter how torturous it is for you, it doesn't matter if it's ruining your plans, because if you do that work up front, you will, they will fall in line. And I'm not talking about like just robots I'm thinking about, I'm talking about critical thinking, problems solving adolescents, that will turn into incredible adults. Because like, as a child, I think I've had this conversation with you as a child, they will behavioral, it's just recorded behavior, psychological fact that they will push to see where the boundaries are, because that defines safety. So when you get an oppositional kid, a lot of times we've wrapped these in all really fancy sayings and things and disorders and whatever. But a lot of times there's just lack of structure. So the parents say nothing is working is because they're not working. So I'm just going to call you out. That's a bunch of BS, you just have held your standards, maybe the wife has and the husband hasn't. And then there's this cot dissonance happening in the kid of like, I don't know where order is. This is all about order and safety. And so then, of course, it's not going to work. If dad says yes to this, and mom says no to this, or there's no communication, it's a lack of communication. It's a lack of unity. And it's a lack of holding a standard, then you've got to use star charts and money and carrots and all this other Hoo, hoo, ha, whoo hoo stuff, that I think it's just dumb. And, and then then every time they do something, they they got their handout. And is that what we want to do? We want a kid that goes and serves meals to the needy and puts their hand out at the end, like, hey, like, where's my gold star? Or five bucks? Like, no, do what you're supposed to do? Because you're supposed to do it. And so I would argue that anybody that has to go to that there's a little chaos somewhere in their relationship.

Curt Storring 42:15

Yeah. And so this is like, one of the biggest things that I hear from guys is the, you know, unruly child. They don't listen. In fact, they often turned violent. I don't know if you've noticed that as well. But in this situation, that's what happened to us. Before I hadn't figured out any of this point, even heard about the fact that you could be a good dad. It's like, oh, man, I Googled how to get a four year old to stop hitting. And it turns out, empathizing when they have no emotion so that they can learn to navigate those and digest them. Number one, number two set boundaries, and just like actually realize that you're in charge, and it's scary for them when you're not. And I think Man, there is like another whole hour conversation here in terms of like, what if the wife is not into it? Or if the husband is not into it? How do you agree? What if there is hitting? How do you stay calm during that? How do you do all this kind of stuff? So maybe we'll put that for another episode? I think so. Yeah. But okay, so, so, okay, there we go. Anything else?

Scott Rammage 43:07

If you get this an order, it's gonna be chaos, you're gonna have screaming at your house, and it's gonna take a long time, we're gonna have kicking and screaming and disobedience, you get in an order. This is so much easier to deal with a toddler. It's embarrassing, and it's frustrating than it is with a middle schooler, or with a pregnant teen, or with some kid that's hooked on drugs, because they have never developed those things. And and then then for them, life is a little chaos. There's no black or white. It's all blurry. So when there's blurry, you're searching and when searching recreates problems. So you deal with it now or you deal with it later. Do you want a kid at 28 living in your home? Because they're not? They're not able to take care of themselves? Then screw it up now? Yeah, the price is much higher long term than it is short term.

Curt Storring 43:53

And yeah, last thought on this is that we don't I have seen even in my life, I don't, I can expect so much out of my kids. And they'll they'll really deliver a lot. I've got to be careful because I do this too much. I have too high expectations often. Yes. On myself, too. But what I've seen is that every time we add one extra thing that the kids need to do in terms of chores every day. It's like, oh man we could have done this months ago because they get it. And so by having that high standard and not going well, they're never going to do this if I don't give them reward. That's not true. It's not have the expectation be that we expect greatness, have a family rule system laid out and printed out somewhere, agree to that talk about it often. And then just expect that everyone does the right thing for the right reason. And then hold them accountable to that. Like yeah, my kids can cook basic meals, they bake all by themselves, they clean this they do like there's so much more that I don't think people are giving their kids credit for being so able, while also then holding the boundaries when their natural childishness comes out. So I hope that encourages someone to you know, do a little bit more, I hope leading as a father Other and set a boundary. So anyway, I know you gotta go. This sucks. I would love to do this for another hour. But, man, thank you for coming on where Thank you. Where should we send people? What are you doing these days?

Scott Rammage 45:10

They can go to the brotherhood of fatherhood podcast, but they should just listen to yours. So it's good stuff coming on.

Curt Storring 45:15

Excellent. Yeah, for sure. Let's do this again soon, and we'll navigate this particular style. But guys, if you've enjoyed listening to this podcast, shownotes Dad.Work slash podcast, you can find everything you need there. And anyway, we're out. Thanks. 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 di 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. And I thank you so much for being here to listen until next week. We'll see you then.