EP114: Be A Better Husband And Father On Your Terms

Interview with Dan Doty / Founder of Evryman, Engaged Fatherhood Leader

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Before the pandemic, Dan Doty was one of the best known advocates for helping men live better, fuller and more fulfilled lives. He was a founder of EVRYMAN, which led group retreats but was ascending to a near-spiritual level of support for men. He was as comfortable talking to Joe Rogan as he was on The Today Show. But all wasn't what it seemed for Dan as a father and husband. While he was helping other men, he wasn't helping himself. A journey into the woods, literal at times, changed how he approached himself and his work. Now he's ready for a comeback. Listen to how he changed and you can too. 

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Transcript

00;00;05;11 - 00;00;24;16
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, strange, and sublime aspects of being a lead that in a world where men who are the go to parent aren't always accepted at work, among their friends or in the community for what they're doing. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan. our podcast is just one of the many things we produce each week at the Company of Dads.

00;00;24;17 - 00;00;48;19
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including the leader of the week. We have our monthly meetups. We have a new research library for all fathers. The one stop shop to learn about all of this is our newsletter, The Dad. So sign up today at the Company of dads.com backslash the dad. Today our guest is Dan Doty, a leading voice for helping men and fathers to connect to be better versions of themselves.

00;00;48;21 - 00;01;15;19
Paul Sullivan
Dan is best known as a founder of Evryman, which began as a group of men trying to help each other. It boomed, leading Dan and his co-founders to be covered by major media that range from The New York Times to The Today Show to The Joe Rogan Experience. He operates at the intersection of masculinity, fatherhood and spirituality. And now he's onto something new Fatherhood Unlocked, which begins with a podcast and goes from there.

00;01;15;22 - 00;01;27;20
Paul Sullivan
He also hosted a Thursday online meetup called The Father's Fire. He's a married father of three, two sons and a daughter. Dan. Welcome to the company dads podcast.

00;01;27;22 - 00;01;35;09
Dan Doty
Happy to be here. Paul. No. Nowhere I'd rather be today. I love it. You know.

00;01;35;12 - 00;01;53;00
Paul Sullivan
You didn't grow up on the coast. You grew up, you know, you kind of, as you said, real connection to to nature. Talk a little bit about that, but but really talk about, you know, when you look back on the path of your life from the childhood, some of those early jobs you had. What led you to start every minute?

00;01;53;02 - 00;02;11;04
Dan Doty
Yeah. Thank you. So I grew up in a very small agricultural town in North Dakota, in the on the border of Canada. And it was flat, culturally flat, geographically flat and, called historic.

00;02;11;06 - 00;02;16;23
Paul Sullivan
And other than that, that North Dakota is the least visited state of the 50 states.

00;02;16;25 - 00;02;19;08
Dan Doty
I mean, yeah.

00;02;19;11 - 00;02;21;18
Paul Sullivan
Is that why you don't live there anymore? You want to be in it?

00;02;21;20 - 00;02;57;16
Dan Doty
Yeah. The three of us that lived there, most of us left. So, I grew up in a very small, loving family. Right. I had one brother and parents who are still together today, and, had a lot of what I would conceive of as, ideal setting for growing up. Right. And, what really moved me in my young years, I guess one thing was, I was, I stumbled into martial arts, which was a really big deal for me.

00;02;57;16 - 00;03;20;25
Dan Doty
But even more important than that. I got invited to go on a wilderness trip with my cousins church group when I was 11 or 12, and we went to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, and it was like a full week. And it just I mean, even if I kind of just let myself remember that a little bit, it completely changed my concept of the world and who I am.

00;03;20;28 - 00;03;34;16
Dan Doty
And that actually became a a real theme for me in my life, stumbling into something that I was completely unaware of, that just sort of opened up my my perception in a really big way. So I did.

00;03;34;16 - 00;03;42;25
Paul Sullivan
That. But when you say that, like, what was the 11 year old Dan like before he went on that trip? And how did you return the car? Did it change?

00;03;42;28 - 00;04;04;03
Dan Doty
Yeah, I mean, really simple. I was really simple, right? Like, I was a bookworm. I was fairly meek and shy. I grew up as a mama's boy. And, you know, martial arts have helped some of that out of me, but. But what that trip did for me was just, I don't know, it was like going from I forget what movie it is.

00;04;04;03 - 00;04;31;25
Dan Doty
It's a Truman Show or something, but a black and white existence to just sort of being just so passionately in love with life and, you know, just the, the simplicity and the wildness really just the wildness of, not being in a little box of any sort and in being in connection to I also fell in love with, one of the, the other students, the this girl named me.

00;04;31;25 - 00;04;56;14
Dan Doty
So I always sort of joke that I had my first two massive love affairs of my life at 11. And it just, it it sparked this light source inside of me. Right. And it just sparked this sense of something so much more visceral and real, you know, not real. That's not the right word, but visceral and felt, you know, being a part of something much larger.

00;04;56;16 - 00;05;20;11
Dan Doty
And I'll jump ahead in years. So I went I went to college in Minnesota and kind of got lucky. I did some international travel as part of my university experience, and that really opened up my, my, my worldview in a large went very grateful for that. But right after college, I was I was actually living in Panama.

00;05;20;14 - 00;05;43;12
Dan Doty
My girlfriend at the time was getting her student teaching credentials in, in an abroad, you know, a school abroad. And, and, ran out of money and went on Craigslist in the internet cafe and found an ad for a job that was a wilderness therapy guide. And I didn't know what it was. I had never heard of it, but it felt interesting and exciting to me.

00;05;43;14 - 00;06;16;08
Dan Doty
And then fast forward just two months later and I am carrying a backpack made out of sticks and elk hide, with a group of 1014 to 16 year old boys who have been sent away from their home, because of just many different reasons of being dysfunctional within their family and school and community. And, literally found myself in that moment, sort of watching as my life's path gets paved in front of me, my, my.

00;06;16;11 - 00;06;49;22
Dan Doty
And so this experience becoming a my first real professional sort of move outside of college, had everything to do with the wilderness and being immersed in wild places, but also just finding this, like natural and very full passion for supporting, supporting boys. And part of that work also involved being present while fathers came in to be with their boys and go on these week long father son experiences.

00;06;49;22 - 00;07;20;00
Dan Doty
And, I'm moving fairly quickly to this story on purpose, but that, you know, the overlap there, that nexus of being involved in it really just being a professional mentor, being a professional older brother, you know, it it both offered me an opportunity to start to get a sense of who I actually was, but gave me just these, like, very clear, directives for myself and where I wanted to go with my life.

00;07;20;02 - 00;07;29;20
Paul Sullivan
So then it was totally natural that when you fast forward, you know, x number of years in your life, you'd end up living in New York City, right? All the experience, that's exactly where you'd you'd end up being.

00;07;29;23 - 00;07;52;00
Dan Doty
Well, it is it is tied in. Right. So so I took that I took that part of my life like that was my adventure. My, my early and mid 20s were full of, you know, guiding groups like this in different wilderness locations northern Minnesota, Montana, Utah, International as well. And, you know, it was perfect. In my off time, I would travel around the world and just have adventures.

00;07;52;00 - 00;08;14;04
Dan Doty
And it was it was like the perfect I can't imagine now, looking back a more fruitful and fulfilling, you know, sort of way to start to become an adult. And but but it also had a ceiling on it. Right? Being a wilderness guide is not the type of career you plan to do for 30 years. Right? It's it's,

00;08;14;06 - 00;08;39;13
Dan Doty
And I found myself at a juncture wanting to get a higher degree. I wanted to get a master's or PhD, and I thought very long and hard between a clinical route, becoming a therapist and then also becoming an educator. And I chose the educator, route. And the most exciting opportunity for me to to tackle that was to become a New York City teaching fellow.

00;08;39;15 - 00;09;12;07
Dan Doty
So I moved to the South Bronx and, went to school at Pace University in downtown Manhattan and, you know, taught for a couple of years in that system. And it was wildly, beneficial. And it broke me off at the same time. Right. It was, it was very intense and, you know, going to school at night and being a brand new teacher, you know, in a city in the in a high school in the Bronx in the day, it, it took its toll.

00;09;12;09 - 00;09;37;02
Dan Doty
And there's kind of a cool, tie in here, though, too, which is that in the midst of that tenure, being a teacher, and especially toward the end, like, it really did, you know, call it a quarter life crisis, call it just getting really burnt out. Call it just me. I don't know. Finding my own habits and bad habits coming, you know, too far to the forefront.

00;09;37;02 - 00;10;02;12
Dan Doty
But in that process, at the end, I did leave. I left after two years. But in that process, I found my first men's group, which started to tie a lot of my world together. I found a, a meditation group, a sangha started seeing a therapist and, you know, really, started taking my own internal landscape. Seriously, I guess.

00;10;02;14 - 00;10;28;10
Paul Sullivan
And you're doing all kinds of stuff. You, you know, you you produce a show at one point called comedy there, but, you know, it's a fascinating back story. And you're, you know, it says in the best possible way. Yeah. Complex, man. But it all leads to everyman, which is how a lot of people know. Dan, how does every man come into existence?

00;10;28;13 - 00;11;15;27
Dan Doty
Yeah. So, I'll I'll back the story up just for a second to say that when I was out in the wilderness, you know, as a younger man doing that, guiding work, I started to have a vision or a, I think vision is probably the, the best way to put it. Or a sense of purpose that, what I, what I observed and experienced in those small groups of adolescent boys in particular, with their fathers coming in, I just felt like I got a peek behind the curtains at, one of, a very clear, society wide, truth or issue or problem, which is just the the natural development of boys

00;11;15;27 - 00;11;47;24
Dan Doty
and men, being stunted in a lot of ways. A lot of what I observed is just very, very fundamental parts of our life that, you know, traditionally in our larger media culture are not where, boys and men are shown or asked to develop. So I'm talking about things like our emotional capacity, our ability to give and receive love, our ability to honor what's true for us and communicate it to the outer world.

00;11;47;24 - 00;12;19;03
Dan Doty
And, you know, I, I fast forward over this little note, but if you could imagine, you know, these young men being sent away from home and their fathers getting on a flight and stopping at Rye and hiking out into the desert, there is a sort of intrinsic wall between father and son, is what I observed over and over and over just of, you know, all of the things just just a lot that goes on said a lot that goes on, felt a lot that goes on transmitted.

00;12;19;03 - 00;12;59;16
Dan Doty
But in those experiences of being out there through the therapy and through just the wilderness sort of emerge and what can happen and what did happen repeatedly was that wall would break down. And you can imagine a 16 year old tough guy, you know, thug type kid breaking down and being held by his dad and, tears just, you know, being shed on both sides and this, this real reclamation of sort of basic humanity, between father and son and that the those moments that I experienced really did truly sort of shift something inside of me.

00;12;59;16 - 00;13;32;11
Dan Doty
And, and so, even from those days, I had this strong inner call, an urge to, to share this to to somehow find a way to, to to help men in their mental health and their ability to connect with their family. And as you might imagine, I mean, it's it was also very real for me. You know, I think there was a without knowing it at the time, there was a, a real longing to know who my dad was, a real desire to, to to feel his love and communicate it and, and all of these things.

00;13;32;11 - 00;13;56;06
Dan Doty
And so, probably can't turn the volume on. That man is real, right? It was something that I unknowingly wanted and needed in my life as well. But then I was observing it in all of the the people around me. So. So I had been tracking and intending, I guess when I was 27, I almost got a book deal.

00;13;56;11 - 00;14;04;15
Dan Doty
It was going to be called, How Not to Suck at Life A Guy's Guide to getting get Getting Your Shit Together right.

00;14;04;21 - 00;14;19;25
Paul Sullivan
Which could only be written by a 27 year old because it was in the 20s. You know, every I use a walk in a restaurant in my 20s, grab the wine list and just start ordering. Now I'm like, I'll just have a glass of red wine. Whatever you think, man. That's you. I don't know shit. But in my 20s, I knew everything.

00;14;19;26 - 00;14;39;12
Dan Doty
Yeah, yeah. So so, you know, there was that moment and, Yeah, when I found my first men's group in New York City, in the midst of being a teacher. That was just another, like, totally, totally wrong model, man. You know, it's just like it was. I was the youngest in the group. It was ten guys that met every week.

00;14;39;14 - 00;14;57;14
Dan Doty
And, it was the same type of thing that was happening around the fire, out in the desert and out in the woods that I was doing for these young men. But then I stumbled into this. I'm like, oh my God, wait a minute. I could have this for myself. I could have I could have guys to support me and push me and challenge me.

00;14;57;17 - 00;15;18;27
Dan Doty
And so that was, you know, that was a, paradigm shifting experience for me. And so I dove in there and you mentioned I did I was I was the director and producer and eventually the executive producer of, a show called Meat Eater, which is a hunting, a wilderness hunting and food based show and lived, lived a pretty wild, exciting life with that for.

00;15;19;00 - 00;15;43;13
Dan Doty
But all the while I was, you know, training and practicing and learning, to lead men's groups, and and I had a knack for it. Right. I think a lot because of my experience in the woods, like running so many, facilitating so many circles in the past, my colleagues and friends that were in these with me would really urge me to, to, to to make a public offer with it.

00;15;43;17 - 00;16;07;19
Dan Doty
Right. And I wanted that. I felt that was right for me, but it was also freaking terrifying. Right. Like to just sort of go public and share, like the stance that men can be vulnerable, maybe need to be vulnerable, that we have feelings, that there's this other capacity inside of us that's generally unlocked. Right. And it was scary.

00;16;07;22 - 00;16;29;21
Dan Doty
And so I made my way up in the, in the ranks of this media company, well known media company, and, and a timing landed out. My first son was born in 2016. I ended up getting fired from my job a month later. And two months later we invited the first group of 40 guys into a barn in the Berkshires.

00;16;29;24 - 00;16;36;03
Dan Doty
And I led my first retreat, and it, it landed, you know, and we were off to the races.

00;16;36;05 - 00;17;06;03
Paul Sullivan
And, you know, you and I have talked the past about Atlantic. You were indeed, off to the races and you had a bullet train, path forward, which, again, from the outside looks amazing. But what was it like? You know, being inside of that train, driving that train, knowing that you're doing a lot of helpful work, but, you know, you have a son, you have a wife, you have, you know, you have financial obligations.

00;17;06;03 - 00;17;07;16
Paul Sullivan
You know.

00;17;07;18 - 00;17;11;04
Dan Doty
It was the best times. And there's the worst times, like 100%. It was a good.

00;17;11;04 - 00;17;15;06
Paul Sullivan
Way to sort of book, you know.

00;17;15;09 - 00;17;37;29
Dan Doty
At, the, the actual work itself was brilliant. I mean, it was just we had, so I had befriended and kind of been taking the under under the wings of a mentor. His name was Owen Marcus, who, who ended up being one of the co-founders of that company. And he'd been doing men's work and men's retreats and groups for, for decades.

00;17;37;29 - 00;17;57;09
Dan Doty
And so and it kind of they devised a methodology that was simple and very effective. And so he and I really, you know, collaborated and work together. And so, you know, we would regularly, I don't know, sometimes five, six times a year bring and it ended up being 80 guys. We would often do 80 guys at a retreat.

00;17;57;11 - 00;18;32;26
Dan Doty
And, I mean, we just we just sort of kickstarted this grassroots movement of there was so much energy. I think there's eight guys at the moment, too, right? It was right. As the MeToo movement was kicking off, there was just a lot of it felt like a right time in the world for something like this. And yeah, the media picked us up very quickly and, and it was, it felt like in some ways just this incredible opportunity to do the work that I was called to inhabit, received so fully.

00;18;33;03 - 00;18;49;01
Dan Doty
Right. Have it received so full and be I mean, it literally just felt like the world was cheering us on, you know? And it was it was that way. I mean, of course there was trolls that would make fun of us and all that stuff, but but like, who cares, right? It it was being it was being received.

00;18;49;03 - 00;19;20;09
Dan Doty
And at the same time, our, I think our initial bullet success was, was also a liability because what it came with, it was, you know, the possibility for designing our business around VC funding and building something that was going to get to X, you know, wild amounts of money and all this stuff. And so what we didn't do was build a, like a, like a scaffolded, simple way to grow a successful business.

00;19;20;09 - 00;19;40;26
Dan Doty
And and I was having babies. We were having my wife. Well, I wasn't, but my wife was. And, you know, I started my, my executive coaching practice right at the same time. So actually, that's how I made my money. So I didn't make I made some like a little money to every man. But really, I had to stand up a whole entire different career in order to take care of my family in this.

00;19;40;26 - 00;20;21;12
Dan Doty
And it involved way too much travel. It involved, you know, a level of sort of obsessive, hopeful energy about what we were doing. You know, it was just a matter before. It was just going to be a matter of time until the the economics of it all worked out. And not only were we getting all this critical success, but of course, we were just around the bend, from it leading to a, a meaningful, sustainable sort of income and, and, and just didn't, you know, and so that that quickly put a hell of a lot of strain on it and on my end, you know, there was a lot of parts of being a

00;20;21;12 - 00;20;58;22
Dan Doty
dad, the functional parts, the pragmatic parts. Right? The money parts, the, like, I hadn't, I guess I got thrown into it how it felt to me. It's like all of a sudden I was a dad with a family to support. Meanwhile, my passion is absolutely taking off. This business is taking off. But there was just sort of like this practical infrastructure that I had not I mean, listen, like little things like had I had I put money away when I was, you know, had I had my successful media career, you know, basic things like that, would have potentially been a different story.

00;20;58;24 - 00;21;10;08
Dan Doty
Right. But but I, I still had a lot of, immature just stuff to learn to work out, you know, and a lot of things to work out. So it was, you know, what.

00;21;10;11 - 00;21;35;15
Paul Sullivan
You guys are doing was remarkable. I think anybody who was around that time was a man in a certain age would remember it. But as I look at it now and like what we're trying to do, you know, with the company dads and how we're going about it, there is a sort of, irony is not the right word, but there's a sort of implicit tension between, you know, doing something to support, you know, other men and to help other men connect.

00;21;35;15 - 00;21;55;13
Paul Sullivan
And at the same time, you know, being a man yourself and being a husband, being a father, if not any of being a provider in the broadest sense of the word. And then at the same time with the people that you're bringing in, the people who are coming, the 80 or so people are coming to these retreats.

00;21;55;16 - 00;22;08;25
Paul Sullivan
You know, any any spouse would probably say, sure. Yeah, yeah. How about it? You know, it could go to one of those, but if you then go to six of them or eight of them, their spouse is going to say, what the hell are you doing? Like, you know, it's like, I, I'm not, you know, one, two.

00;22;08;28 - 00;22;26;11
Paul Sullivan
My my wilderness is is a golf course. So I'm not about to, you know, nothing's going to attack me at the alligator usually asleep. But, like, I would only take, you know, I only take maybe 1 or 2 golf trips a year, and those are, like, three days, and I line it up because otherwise there's responsibilities.

00;22;26;14 - 00;22;39;22
Paul Sullivan
How did you, you know, how did some of the men who came to every man work through that implicit tension? How did you yourself work through that tension? Is not just a dad, but but a brand new dad.

00;22;39;24 - 00;23;14;13
Dan Doty
Yeah. Great question. I, I feel like that tension is, Yeah, to name it in my terms, it is just the, the shift that a man goes through when he becomes a father in terms of what responsibility actually means and what it actually actually looks like. Right. And so it's interesting because there is both on an acute individual level, but also on a, you know, societal level, generational level, men's mental health and men's just basic overall wellness is is not great.

00;23;14;19 - 00;23;40;16
Dan Doty
Right. And there is there's legitimate, need there to address that. And I that was what we were doing was one way to go about addressing that. And it was a powerful way. Right. It was, the type of thing that could enact real change real quickly. Really equipped men with with skills to, connect, you know, with their partners, with their children, with themselves, with friends.

00;23;40;18 - 00;24;13;29
Dan Doty
And really could wedge in a, a level of health and awareness and connection that was, you know, almost unthinkable prior, right? It really had that, that impact. But but that's exactly you know, the tension is that it takes time, it takes resources, it takes, you know, and we live in a finite I think one of the things that when I say that I had a lot of immaturity or lack of practicality in me, it was going from, a lifestyle that felt it didn't feel infinite.

00;24;13;29 - 00;24;43;05
Dan Doty
Right, that that's too big of a word, obviously. But, a lot of freedom and a lot of room for like, before I got married and had kids, you know, I was literally a professional at following my, my, my passion and taking care of myself. Right. And, so, I guess fast forwarding a little bit what I've, I've since left every man, like, spent three and a half years now, so I have a good chunk of time in after that.

00;24;43;08 - 00;25;14;09
Dan Doty
And as I grow up and, and, you know, understand the world and my role in it a little bit better, what I'm really curious about is how can we provide enough sort of support and, I don't know, opportunity for men to, to engage in, in their own mental health, in their own wellness while not, you know, upsetting the the rhythm of life, upsetting the basic sense of responsibility.

00;25;14;09 - 00;25;24;10
Dan Doty
Right. So it's I mean, working at it, I don't I'm not saying there's a perfect algorithm to figure it out here yet, but, yeah.

00;25;24;12 - 00;25;43;25
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. You know, one of the things my wife talks about, she works, in finance, she talks about how it is much easier to be pushed out of your job than it is to jump away from your job. And when you're pushed, you're like, okay, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta figure this out. What I what am I doing now?

00;25;43;25 - 00;25;59;29
Paul Sullivan
But to jump, you're like, well, is now the time to jump or do I wait a little bit? Is it going to get better? What was a moment when you said, okay, I got to leave every man. I gotta try to do something else. I gotta figure out whatever it is it's going to be next for for damn.

00;26;00;03 - 00;26;19;27
Dan Doty
It was a pandemic. So it was 2020 and it was on the on the back of, you know, a year, maybe two years. I'd have to check with my wife to get the accurate read on that. But of, you know, coming up against, a series of conversations where it's like, Dan, this is this is not been working for too long, right?

00;26;19;27 - 00;26;46;29
Dan Doty
And a real change needs to happen. And then the pandemic hit. We were we were living in southern Kent. We actually did the our family did the full minimal living thing. We moved into an RV, on a regenerative farm outside of Ojai, California, and we're like, had some of the best years of our life doing that. But living there in the middle of a pandemic, as it started and things felt very, very, very unstable and insecure.

00;26;47;01 - 00;27;12;15
Dan Doty
We pulled the plug, we pulled the plug on where we were living, and we drove across country and, you know, ended up buying a home here in Maine. And as part of that also, it was just, things had become more and more untenable within the organization. And it was it was it was obviously it was, a really hard decision to stay for a long time before I actually left.

00;27;12;15 - 00;27;32;07
Dan Doty
But but the moment that I left was just in the midst of literally what felt like everything kind of melting down, you know, around us. And, yeah, it was it was a scary thing to let go of. But, you know, had a lot of, a lot of growing up that happened because of it. I would say.

00;27;32;09 - 00;27;41;27
Paul Sullivan
Well, let's talk about, you know, kind of what's next, know what's what was the genesis of fatherhood unlocked?

00;27;42;00 - 00;28;07;12
Dan Doty
Yeah. The genesis, I mean, to be really blunt about it, it was, in the first inception was that I didn't feel like I could, like, tuck away my passion neatly into a drawer and not continue to follow it. And it was also every man was still existing. Right. And I didn't it didn't feel right to just immediately come out of the gates and go head to head and, you know, create a competing entity.

00;28;07;12 - 00;28;34;22
Dan Doty
And so we kind of discussed and, a possibility of, you know, doing men's work and doing what I, what I do best, but, anchoring it toward a population that is not necessarily fully, contradictory to, to that business. Right. So that was the business end of it. But but it was also just a, clarifying an emerging reality for me that.

00;28;34;24 - 00;28;52;27
Dan Doty
That the work that we were doing it every man and that sort of traditional or straight forward men's work is, really, really, really helpful. And it also tends to live out in the nether regions a little bit. Right? It's like you go to this retreat or you go to a group and it's out here away from life.

00;28;52;27 - 00;29;21;06
Dan Doty
It's it's out here that this somewhere else, some different sort of time continuum. And with fatherhood and I would also name for, for my work with, with organizations and executives and executive teams, is that that same type of interaction and education and experience, when brought into the context of a, you know, closer to the context of real life has a lot of benefit to bring with it.

00;29;21;11 - 00;29;51;15
Dan Doty
Right? It's it's so sometimes, like at a traditional men's retreat, it sort of feels like, okay, you go over here, you liberate all these new things, you have all these new ideas, but then what? Right. Like. Like what? What how does that, what happens to those new things that are emerged, but in the context of fatherhood? You know, we'll do a call with a bunch of dads, and, you know, what comes out of it is a very direct application for improving and deepening your bonds with your kids or taking action in your business.

00;29;51;15 - 00;30;17;06
Dan Doty
Right. So it's in a strange way, it almost feels more bioavailable. It it it feels like it has more of a direct impact on, on a life. And so that that's been really central part part of what central toward my shift to it. Plus it's also, the men's work world. Again, it's, it's, it's so far from mainstream, right?

00;30;17;06 - 00;30;37;16
Dan Doty
It's like the fringe of the fringe, if you look at statistics. Right. And I mean, I feel at this times it's somewhat even burdened by my inability to just let that go. Right. Like, I could just I could just turn toward my executive career and, you know, make a wonderful living and just do all that. But but I can't let that go.

00;30;37;19 - 00;31;13;06
Dan Doty
And the so if I am going to spend a lot of my time and energy really attempting to build something, it's a, it's a, it's a landscape that isn't established and mature, right? Like dads aren't investing money and time into their fatherhood. Right? There's no father training. There's not many, there's not much out there. And I actually feel very strongly that, with the way that the zeitgeist is changing around fatherhood and parenthood in general, I mean, you and your company, you know, is it's a prime example of that, right?

00;31;13;13 - 00;31;33;21
Dan Doty
There is a there's a change happening and dads are being asked and expected to show up in, in our family's lives in, in a way that my dad's generation, very few would have even known how to comprehend. Right. And so there is a skills gap, right? So if I if I break this down, it's a really simple thing.

00;31;33;22 - 00;32;09;17
Dan Doty
There's a huge skills gap and capacity gap in what men like me in fatherhood are, both internally wanting to bring to our life and our families and what our partners want us to bring. Yeah, what our kids, maybe unknowingly, would want us to bring. And, and then also just to bring it back in the business realm, I mean, I have a hunch that, you know, the market space around fatherhood know in a lot of ways, consumer brands and just but a lot of different ways is changing.

00;32;09;19 - 00;32;13;18
Dan Doty
And, that's part of my thinking as well.

00;32;13;20 - 00;32;30;22
Paul Sullivan
If I understood it correctly. And I may be wrong, but, you know, the analogy or draw is like, you know, when you go to a men's retreat, I think of like, you know, one of my favorite places to go in the United States is this little town north of Scottsdale in Arizona called Cave Creek. And they're wonderful hiking there.

00;32;30;22 - 00;32;45;29
Paul Sullivan
And you go out there and nothing. Now, every, every August, bunch of people die because they're stupid. And they go out there with that water and there's nothing and, you know, it's nothing. But I, I go in February and I like it and it's, you know, clears my head. It's wonderful. I've been out that one of my daughters come with me.

00;32;46;06 - 00;33;03;08
Paul Sullivan
We've walked and we just have a great time. But then you go up and then you go home and, you know, there's a great book by a great short story about, Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentine writer called The Alef. And in the alef you have this moment. The alef is this moment of like total consciousness, total awareness of something.

00;33;03;08 - 00;33;30;28
Paul Sullivan
It's almost overwhelming, and the person experience is very concerned. And then as the days and weeks go on, he becomes more concerned because that that feeling dissipates and it disappears. So, so, so and until it's gone. So if I understand correctly, what you're looking to do with fatherhood unlocked is connect sort of this, this vast library of knowledge that you personally have, in the men's space, in the in the working men's groups.

00;33;31;01 - 00;33;44;23
Paul Sullivan
But directing it toward fathers where they are being, you know, in their home with their families, going to bed too late, getting up too early and trying to make a go of it. Is that is that a good summation?

00;33;44;25 - 00;34;07;19
Dan Doty
It is a good summation. Yeah. And part of heart of what I've experienced. I mean, what are the avenues for supporting oneself. Right. There's therapists there. You can get a coach, you can if you have sort of addiction issues, you go to a, anonymous meeting, like, there's a lot of established ways to sort of find resources and support that you need.

00;34;07;19 - 00;34;43;23
Dan Doty
Right. And I'm talking more than the internal resources. They're less external. Right. And what I experienced in a good, solid men's group that that meets regularly is a just a sweet spot, just an absolute sweet spot of resourcing and expansion that I think comes from the peer to peer structure. Right? To have other other men that you can see yourself in, that you can understand, it it just creates this, oh, man, just this possibility for acceleration in so many ways.

00;34;43;28 - 00;35;15;07
Dan Doty
Right. In terms of just healing some of your, your baggage, but also in your ability to interface with, with the world around you. Right. There's a I remember the, the first every man group I ever started in person. We were living in Montana, I think was ten guys that started. And by month three, six of them had, you know, either started the business they'd been waiting ten years to start or, you know, changed or had the guts to ask for that big raise and that job shift.

00;35;15;09 - 00;35;44;01
Dan Doty
You know, one of them decided finally to marry his, you know, partner, that he'd been on the, you know, just like these. There's this, kind of general, I don't know, malaise or, I'm not like, I don't want I don't mean this in any judgmental way, but just sort of life as it is. But in these structures that you put together, I mean, if you want to just name one it act, what actually happens is it's guys that come together and say, hey, what's actually most important?

00;35;44;03 - 00;35;57;25
Dan Doty
You know, like like, what are you really trying to do with your time in your life? What do you really try to do with your career? How do you really want to show up for your family? And you create the conditions to get actually honest about that, and you say it out to you, like, say it out loud.

00;35;57;28 - 00;36;29;02
Dan Doty
And these guys who care about you hear you say it. It's it just sets the conditions for, you know, taking the appropriate risks in your life, or finding the appropriate help that you really actually need it. Just it's just such an it's such a seemingly organic. I mean, obviously, it takes intention to put yourself in that situation and it takes your willingness to show up to it, but it just has a particular, magic and benefit to it that in this and I am a coach.

00;36;29;02 - 00;36;48;16
Dan Doty
Right. And I've done therapy for years and I've done and all of that is wonderful. But this is a this is another way that I think the peer structure just really there's just something there, you know, and I just kind of can't let go of it. And when it comes to fathers, you know, I feel like so we kind of proved it out.

00;36;48;16 - 00;37;09;11
Dan Doty
You can go off to a retreat. You can connect deeply with these men. You can, you know, find out really what you feel and what you think and what you want. But my question is like, okay, great. So I've got the skill, right? I've learned the I've learned that's possible. Who should I actually be doing with that? With my wife, my son, my my business partner.

00;37;09;16 - 00;37;41;08
Dan Doty
Right. Like like that's where it that's where it really counts. And so, yeah, I think that, and it is hard, right? We don't have much time left over in our day, in our week. But, what I'm really what have been workshopping is what is a, you know, what's like the minimum viable dose, like, how can we how can we invest in ourselves enough to resource ourselves more fully, to have more creative space and agency, to have the friends around us that we need?

00;37;41;08 - 00;38;07;01
Dan Doty
And that's honestly, that's one of the big things here too, is that, you know, there's there's exceptions out there, but statistically, middle aged men, fathers have the fewest friends of anybody in our society. And, and, you know, we can sort of anecdotally feel how that sucks. But when it comes to actually, being productive and powerful in our life, like, it's a huge deal, right?

00;38;07;01 - 00;38;19;10
Dan Doty
It's a huge deal. Like, so, belonging somewhere without question is something that a lot of men just do not have.

00;38;19;12 - 00;38;49;25
Paul Sullivan
And, daddy, thank you for being my guest today in the Company Dads podcast. One final question for you about fatherhood unlocked. And I love that you hear that phrase unlocked. You know, guys, listen to this. That sounds good. You've touched on a little bit, you know, the time issue. But how, you know, when you think of like one, two, three ways that you're going to be able to help fathers find that time for themselves to be better versions of themselves, be better spouses, be better dads, be better workers.

00;38;49;27 - 00;38;58;29
Paul Sullivan
How would the plan to sort of help those guys, you know, work that into the day? So that's just not one other thing that stresses them the hell out, because they're not going to do that well either.

00;38;59;01 - 00;39;27;10
Dan Doty
Yeah. The first is that you have to find some space in your life to slow the hell down, like really slow down and unplug from the digital world and unplug from the needs all around you. So it sounds like, you know, golf might be your place, or Cave Creek is a place where you. But like, there has to be a place to to where your own internal world and truth is louder than everything else, right?

00;39;27;10 - 00;40;09;23
Dan Doty
So that's a start. But I think right on the back of that is that it's it seems impossible that doing one thing in your life would make more room for everything else. But I think that that's almost what has to happen is we need to find something or somewhere in our life that resources enough, that refreshes us enough, that recharges us enough that that thing becomes not the burden of one more task, but that is the place to go, which sort of puts relaxant into the whole system, that that creates space for clear thinking and clear feeling and allows you to orient back into the maelstrom of life, you know, more, more fully.

00;40;09;23 - 00;40;44;09
Dan Doty
So, I mean, it could be a group. It could be I mean, it could be anything, right? It could be just a basketball game. It could be a hang with your buddies. It could be a a quarterly camping trip. Who knows what it is. But the the overwhelm. And I would just say, unbreakable tiredness that we face face is that it is possible to live this reality of fatherhood from a more resourced place and from a place where we have this, like, basic okay ness inside of us.

00;40;44;09 - 00;40;50;16
Dan Doty
And if we have the courage to go after that, it's available.

00;40;50;18 - 00;40;59;06
Paul Sullivan
Then. Thank you again for being my guest. Everyone check out Fatherhood Unlocked. I'm super excited for it. Again, really appreciate your time.

00;40;59;08 - 00;41;00;23
Dan Doty
Thanks, pop.

00;41;00;26 - 00;41;26;05
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the Company Dads podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do. The company dads possible. Helder Mira, who is our audio producer Lindsay Decker hand is all of our social media. Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition. Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me.

00;41;26;05 - 00;41;43;25
Paul Sullivan
And many of the things that we do here at the Company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad. Sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.