October 15, 2024 • 23 mins
In this episode, Eric & Kevin discuss the importance of being true to oneself, not working too hard, expressing feelings, staying in touch with friends, and allowing oneself to be happy. They emphasize the need for accountability and intentionality in order to avoid regrets in the future. The conversation ends with a reminder to cherish the present moment and create lasting memories.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Legacy Makers
00:29 Date Nights and Routines
02:19 Living a Life True to Yourself
06:28 Balancing Work and Personal Life
10:17 Expressing Feelings and Communication
14:01 Nurturing Friendships
16:47 Finding Happiness and Prioritizing Self-Care
21:27 Closing Thoughts
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:03):
Being a dad is hard. It's high stakes. It takes
a toll on our self-worth, mental health and can be lonely.
But why would we ever want to do something so
important in isolation? Legacy makers. A conversation for dads is
quite simply, two normal dads having conversations about, you guessed it,
being a dad. The highs, the lows and the learnings
along the way. We are for dads. We want to
(00:25):
remedy the deficiency we see in community for dads, and
we want to ruthlessly encourage dads on their journey to
build lasting legacy for the faces they love the most.
S2 (00:36):
All right, Eric, back in action. Good to see you.
S1 (00:38):
You too buddy.
S2 (00:39):
So you know, we talk a lot about being dads,
but a lot of it comes back to being husbands too.
And rhythms and routines. I'm curious, do you and Brittany
like what's your go to movies, TV shows, go to
nice dinners. What's a date night?
S1 (00:55):
Oh, well, we used to watch a lot of movies. It's, um.
Now it's like TV shows. I feel almost embarrassed that
I think we've seen everything. There's something about like being
able to 30 to 45 minutes is better. We end
up watching a bunch of them and kind of binge them.
But we we love shows. Um, do.
S2 (01:12):
You have the same taste or do you disagree on them?
S1 (01:14):
Thankfully, it's very similar. Um, like, she's like, she's got
some dark. Like she likes all the books she reads
are like murder mysteries, like that kind of stuff. And, like,
it kind of translates into the shows. Um, but she like.
Which you.
S2 (01:28):
Also like.
S1 (01:29):
I do kind of too. Yeah. For sure.
S2 (01:32):
So I feel like Laura and I are much more
aligned on TV shows, but movies, you know, a few
years older than her and child of the 80s, I'm
trying to get her to like these movies. I mean,
she doesn't like Christmas Vacation, which is a big deal
for us every year. This is bad, the holidays. But
we had an issue a couple weeks ago because we
(01:52):
I wanted to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off. She'd never
seen it.
S1 (01:55):
Oh, my.
S2 (01:56):
Would you like to take just a minute to tell
Laura why she should watch this movie?
S1 (02:00):
It's such a classic movie.
S2 (02:03):
I agree it is a classic one. I think we
all can identify with Ferris. We aspire to be Ferris. Uh,
a little bit of mischief, but Ferris has a line
in the movie that I think we should anchor on
as dads for this one. I love this, he says.
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look
around once in a while, you might miss it. I
(02:27):
think at this point he's like trying to persuade his
friend to skip school. That's not supposed to be. But
the principle still stands that life goes by fast. Being
a dad goes by fast. And if you don't stop
and enjoy those moments. So I'd love to talk for
just a few minutes on one. How do you make
the intentionality to stop and enjoy the moments? And if
(02:47):
we fast forward five years, ten years, 15 years, what
are the moments that we are going to most regret
missing if we are not intentional about them right now?
So any thoughts on that?
S1 (02:59):
Yeah my thought too, on Ferris unfairness is, um, I
think most people aspire to have his, like, mindset of
not worrying about anything. I mean, this guy's he's mischievous,
he's skipping school, he's lying to everybody. He's stealing. What
is it, a Ferrari? What was the red car? Was
(03:20):
it a Ferrari? His buddy's dad's Ferrari. And so I
like I think it's cool, but my gosh, like, having
him as a figure of, like, this is how you
should be a dad is not. Not ideal. Um.
S2 (03:35):
More like a fun uncle or fun uncle.
S1 (03:37):
That's a good way to that. Has a lot of
parental like supervision around. Um, but no, you know what's
so funny? I was thinking it's. I'm thankful that I'm
aware of where I sit right now with my children.
My my oldest just turned 11, and so there's some
dads maybe rolling their eyes because their kids are way
(03:58):
older than that, like, oh, you have all this time. Um,
but I'm thankful that I had this, like, urgency when
cam turned 11 a few weeks ago, knowing that, okay,
he's going to middle like he just started fifth grade,
but middle school is around the corner like it's already
starting where I'm not as cool as I. You know,
he thought that I was. So my fear and I
(04:20):
started to reflect on the things that I might have
missed or didn't maximize was more of the just like
day to day mentioned rhythms, like the day to day
rhythms or interactions that maybe were either rushed or I
wasn't as present in just because they just seem like
it's okay to miss those. Like if we're going to
miss something and these are the ones that it's okay
(04:41):
to miss, we can do. We don't have to do
bedtime routine tonight because I've got this thing I'm working
on because there's every night's a bed night routine, bedtime routine.
And so I'm hopeful that I can really anchor to that, um,
moving forward. Because I do think that's what I'm going
to look back on. I'm like, dude, like, you really
didn't have to do those emails. like from 8 to
(05:03):
9:00 when you could have been hanging out with them,
you know. So I don't think it's going to be
looking back and say, I wish the Disney trip was
better or we did this beat. I think the big
things were going to hit because they're big things. But
I do think it's the day to day.
S2 (05:16):
So I'm rereading the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown. We
may have talked about that in a previous episode. We
talked about the word priority. And he quotes in there Bonnie, Bonnie,
where she's quoted like, if any leadership book, you find
this one study from this Australian hospice nurse who chronicled
(05:37):
the five biggest regrets of her patients when they were dying.
So I know, here we go, here we go. I'd
love to just let's kind of go through those, because
I want to figure out if we're trying to play offense,
if we're trying to get ahead of those regrets. I'm
curious kind of how we think we're doing and where
(05:58):
we may have some work. So you want me to
give you one at a time or five in a row?
S1 (06:01):
Yeah. No, I think one at a time. There's only
one depressing episode.
S2 (06:06):
A great, depressing episode. Okay, so number one, number one regret.
She says of all the people she's sitting by all
these people when they're dying. Biggest regrets? Number one, I
wish I'd had the courage to live a life true
to myself, not the life others expected of me. Apply
that to being a dad. Man, I just I realize
(06:31):
that my parenting is different in public than it is
in private, because I care an awful lot what other
people think about me. And I even think the decisions
I make of you were talking about what things to
miss or not miss. Most of the time when I
make a decision to miss something, for me, it's not
about just working harder. It's usually something where I don't
want to disappoint somebody else. And almost always, the person
(06:55):
that I'm not trying to disappoint loves me a lot
less than my wife and kids do.
S1 (07:00):
Yeah, that's convicting. It's funny, I was telling you the
story earlier today. Brittany and I have a monthly brunch
on our calendar that, um. It's just like a recurring
kind of this, this day of, you know, once a month.
And I canceled it today because I had a bunch
of other stuff going on and had to run around,
and my brain was, well, we were together. We just
(07:21):
went on a big trip, um, a one on one trip,
and we had eight days together. That was my. But
I didn't speak that out to her. I just said, hey.
And so as I was leaving, she was like, oh,
what are you doing later today? And I was like,
you know, Kevin and I are going to get to this,
this and this, and then I'll be home after Kevin
and I do a couple, you know, we're going to
do a podcast episode. They said, oh, she's like, it's
(07:43):
interesting that that didn't get moved around, like to make
room for the things you had to do this morning.
And I was like, but we were just, you know,
I get it, I got it. But we were together
for eight days. Like I just said, she's like, I
don't care. Like, you know. And it was like that
reminder to your point of what? Who do you want
(08:05):
to get an A plus from?
S2 (08:07):
And I think that's big. If we want to live
a life and be the dad with no regrets, that
that one is big to me, like being true to
myself and I would say my family. Yeah, not just
the people that I, for some reason care about impressing.
All right, number one, are you ready for number two?
I feel like this one we talk about a lot.
(08:27):
The other three might get a little iffy here. The
second one is, I wish I wouldn't have worked so hard. Now,
this is a tension for me because we have said
multiple times on this podcast, this is not the podcast
that says like, man, you got to quit your job.
If you're going to be a good dad, you should
not work hard, right? Where do you find the line here?
S1 (08:46):
I think, um, I agree with the sentiment of that.
If it starts to become you, can you more often
than not are choosing work over yourself and your family.
And I really intentionally say yourself first there because we've
talked about that whole like oxygen mask analogy. I'm so
(09:09):
much better when I'm and it's not like a full
day to by myself, but like when I start the
day the way I need to, I'm just so much
better to my family. But I do think to me,
I think hard work is really, really important. But I've
had moments in my life where it was it was
too important. It was more important. On what was the
the loves. Remember what you were telling me about? Like
(09:31):
the disordered loves, loves.
S2 (09:32):
It's not that we love the wrong things, it's that
we love the right things and the wrong.
S1 (09:37):
That's how I would react to that. It's when. When
work is in the wrong order in the list of
your loves. It's a problem for sure.
S2 (09:46):
It's good. Let's go with this one. The third biggest regret.
So number one, courage to live a life true to myself,
not the one others expected of me. Number two hadn't
worked so hard. Number three, I'm going to hate this
one right here. I wish I'd had the courage to
express my feelings. A couple episodes ago, we were talking
about your Olympic trip, and we were talking about encouragement
(10:08):
and how some of us, like we struggle to we,
like me, struggle to express the encouragement because. Not because
we don't feel it. Because we feel like we can't
express that or say it. I feel like you're better
at this. Maybe.
S1 (10:24):
Um, yes and no. I don't see that's the thing, too.
Sometimes I'm actually better with my friends now than I
ever was because I worked at it. So, you know,
the impetus of a lot of these conversations was I
went through a really hard time and didn't talk to
anybody about it because of pride or many other reasons.
And I've been so thoughtful about breaking that down, oftentimes
(10:48):
because of work, because of just how busy life is.
Sometimes I'll sit there and be with bread. At the
end of the day, I'm like, it's just easier to
go to bed, you know, like it's it's more of
a lazy thing and that I realize that that is
a big problem. But it's. But I don't know when
you when you say you're going to hate it. What
about that? Do you hate just because you're you?
S2 (11:09):
I don't know. I really don't know what it is
that I can't. My coach and I like to say
coach because then it makes me feel like it's not
a therapist, but it's my business coach. But my business
coach says a lot of times that I'm not. I
don't express my feelings because I'm so attuned to what
everybody else thinks. I don't know what they really like.
I'm feeling this way, but my feelings are often a
(11:30):
response to are these other people happy? Are they sad?
Are they disappointed? And so figuring out. But this is
an area that I'm going to say publicly because Laura
will hold me accountable if I say it on this
podcast is an area that I want to get better. Yeah,
I find that it's easier for me to express my
feelings on stage in front of a thousand people than
it is one on one.
S1 (11:51):
Yeah, I agree. I see it with my boys. Oftentimes
I try to get underneath. How are you feeling? Like
after a hard situation or a game and I can
see it. I don't know if it's a my girls
are too little, so we'll see if it's consistent. But
I'm trying to pull out from my boys. What do
you feel about this? And in fact, one of the
(12:11):
ways I've talked to Ben at my my middle son,
he he's very, um, to himself when it comes, like
when things are not when he's not feeling well, he's
just like everything's in. And we have this analogy where
I talk about, imagine, get your backpack and we're going
to put a bunch of rocks and bricks in it,
and you and I are going to go around and
walk around the little pond out back and as you
(12:32):
speak and like, imagine us taking some of these rocks
out of your backpack. And how much lighter does it
get as you can. That's like almost this visual to
him about buddy. Like what you're keeping inside is preventing you.
It's heavy. You know what I mean? Trying to, like,
demonstrate to him so he can understand, like, the impact
of not letting some of that out. You know what
(12:53):
I'm saying? Because I'm trying to get them to understand
that early.
S2 (12:56):
I think it's good. And I want to just. I'll
encourage you that I feel like you're leading the way
on this a lot because I love to, you know?
Bust your chops when on some of these other things.
But I remember getting a text message from you this summer,
just sharing about a moment and a story that you
were talking about, and you just said, this is the
last part of your text message, like just sharing this
(13:17):
because it felt timely as we strive for endurance and encouragement.
And I feel like when we have the courage to
do it, to share our feelings and be open, we
give other people the permission that they're looking for to
do the same.
S1 (13:30):
So, well, I would just add to that the thing
to be careful of, though, when you do that and
share your feelings, it cannot be because I need something reciprocated.
It has to be because it's it's for you to share.
It's for someone else. Because, you know, in that situation,
if I wanted to share that personal thing with you
(13:51):
and but I was needing something back and I put
that on you, that's not fair to you to give
me what I need. And that can be a challenge.
S2 (13:57):
It's really good. Number four. Man, I think this is
this is when strikes at the heart of what we're
trying to do in building a community. Number four is
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Oh,
she's sitting there. People are dying. They're like, man, I
wish I would have stayed better in touch with my friends.
But in this season of life, married, crazy job schedule, travel,
(14:19):
young kids. I'm finding that hard to do. It's hard now.
Text message. Man, I we can I can tear up
some group text, like sending memes and that kind of stuff.
But really staying in touch with my friends seems really tough.
S1 (14:33):
Yeah, I won't name him because he's I don't want
to give him public credit for for this, but, uh,
Travis k Travis, um, you know, he's one of my
best friends. You know, Travis and we're on a group chat.
Same thing. Like, we're all in the same. We're all
in the same season of life. Bunch of kids. And
he said something really convicting recently. He sent us a me,
(14:53):
and there's three other guys, Travis. There's four of us total.
And he's like, man, like, we we need to do
a better job. And we were all kind of like, well, yeah, man,
we talk all the time on here. He's like no,
like to talk like it shouldn't be that hard for
us to speak, because the first response was, hey man,
we're on this group chat all the time. And the
next guy was, hey, we're playing golf in a couple weeks.
And he was like, no, like to talk. Like, it
(15:13):
shouldn't be that hard. And I was like, man, like.
And he's right and it's hard. You got to find time.
But it's the top five thing this hospice lady heard.
And it makes sense. But it can be challenging in
this season with the kids and running in different directions.
But trying to carve that time out.
S2 (15:30):
You know, we think about it a lot related to
our spouses that one day the kids are going to
be out of the house and hopefully we've we've got
the relationship with each other that we want to hang
out and do life together. But I also think there's
going to come a time where we have more of
that bandwidth for friends and you understand the season you're in,
but you don't want to get down the road and
have not nurtured friendships for 20 years and have to
(15:53):
start fresh. That's right. So I love there's an old, uh,
Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers sang a song called You
Can't Make Old Friends And, you know, I just love
that we have Dolly Parton on the podcast.
S1 (16:05):
But she's one of your favorite artists for sure.
S2 (16:07):
But this is your target audience here. But I love that. Like,
there's just something about those friendships and finding a way
to nurture them. So last one, you've hit on this
a lot when we talk. I'm curious your thoughts on
this number five biggest regret of the dying. I wish
I had let myself be happier.
S1 (16:26):
Yeah. Wow. The interesting word on that is let myself. Like,
when I hear that, I'm almost. I just take a
pause and I wonder sometimes what how often am I
not allowing myself to be happy? That's a that's a heavy,
heavy one for me because I want, you know, to me,
(16:48):
I think it's some of the things we talk about
is just the pressure on everybody, all the different things
going on in our minds, the 24 seven kind of
world we live in, from the fully connected news media
cycle with work, there's never really hey, I'm going to
leave this at the door at 5 p.m. schedule. So
it's there's a lot going on there. But I do
(17:09):
think taking the step back and understanding, like what? What
do you really want to be? What do you want
out of this life with especially with your family? Like
what do you want? Quite simply. And trying to drill
down to the simple, you know.
S2 (17:24):
It's not about being self-serving, but I'm a better dad
when I'm in a better mood. Yes. Like when I'm happier,
I'm a better husband. I'm a better dad. I'm a
better person to work with. And so how do we
find this balance of focusing on others and serving others,
while making sure that we put our oxygen mask on first? Yeah,
(17:44):
I think.
S1 (17:44):
We had a whole we talked about this in one
of our earlier episodes on the importance of of self
and everybody's routine and thing to be. You know, self-care
is going to be different. And I think we got
to really take a step back if we're struggling with
that and realize, okay, what is it that I need
for myself to show up in that way? Because that's
really the key to your point. Man, when I start
(18:06):
my days the right way. When I'm connected the way
I need to be connected, I'm such a different person.
You know, the distraction isn't as heavy. But I also
think it's it's really we've talked we, you know, again,
another previous conversation, the importance of anchoring to right now.
Like of course understand what the future needs to be
and all your goals. But anchor to the day to
that's really all that we have. As as cliche as
(18:28):
that is.
S2 (18:29):
You know, I'm turning these from the negative and putting
them in the positive because if if that's the regret
down the road, you know, I regret these five things
I wish, I wish, I wish and you're saying we
should anchor to right now. What are the things I
need to do right now to not have those regrets
down the road? So it's, you know, have the courage
(18:50):
to be true to myself, not what others expect of me.
Don't work so hard. Not that we shouldn't work hard,
but we shouldn't let the pursuit of hard work get
in the way of our relationships. Have the courage to
express my feelings. Man, that one's tough. Stay in touch
with our friends and let yourself be happy. I would
just be curious from you. Are there certain practices what
(19:12):
are just revisiting? What are the daily disciplines? What do
you do to keep yourself on track so that this
doesn't get lost?
S1 (19:19):
So I don't know if it's a daily thing, but
I'll tell you everything that these five regrets to me
right now with what I have ahead of me. Hopefully
it's a count. To me, it's accountability. Like we as dads, moms, dads, men,
women be accountable. All these things that let myself be happy,
(19:41):
you know, I wish I would have stayed in contact
with friends. They are all driven by somebody at some point,
lost sight of what was important, and they weren't accountable
to the main thing or the main things, and that's
what they drift. They experience massive drift over time. We're
going to get to the end of our days. I
don't care if you did everything perfectly and you had
(20:01):
the perfect relationships and you never missed a moment, we're
going to get to the end of our days and
we're going to want more time. We're going to wish
we had more things. That is universally true, but it's
more regret. When you're not accountable, you've got to set
your sights on what is the most important things, and
then you got to set it and kind of put
(20:21):
it out there, and you've got to show up every
day and be accountable to doing those things. And if
you start to drift, you better get back on track
as quickly as possible, because that little one degree drift
could end up being a massive, massive detour down the
line that you're going to have to come back from.
S2 (20:35):
We can hit this in a future episode, but as
you're talking about this, I'm like, I'm nodding my head
because I'm like, that's how I think about business. Like,
you got to put the goal out and we got
to stay focused on it and we're drifting. We're going
to go back, or are we at our true north?
And for some reason, it is easier to hold myself
accountable and be intentional doing that in the business environment
(20:56):
than it is in the family environment. And I don't
know why that is, but I think it's key All right.
Land the plane. Ferris Bueller says life moves pretty fast.
If you don't stop and look around once in a while,
you might miss it. I think we're going to get
to the end a lot faster than we realize. Yeah,
a lot faster than we want. And I want to
(21:16):
make sure we're doing it with as little regrets as possible.
S1 (21:19):
I love it. You know, you talk about Ferris Bueller
and you're quoting him. I'm going to quote Drake, who
may not be ever relevant again. Drake may he may
never be relevant again. Kevin, I know you're a big
Dolly Parton fan, but if you haven't been paying attention,
there's been a very bad thing that's happened to Drake
based on what Kendrick Lamar has done to him with
some songs. Okay. He's just not. He's basically done. He's been.
(21:42):
So you're going.
S2 (21:43):
To close this out with.
S1 (21:43):
Drake? I'm going to give him I'm going to revive
Drake's career, his career, giving him a shout out on
this podcast. I forget the name of the song, but
he had this. One of his lines was, I'm looking
forward to the memories of right now. And he rapped
it just like I said it like this. Very looking
forward to the memories of right now. Um, but I
love that. I love, I love that thought. Like, if
you're present enough to know, like this is the time.
(22:06):
Like you're in this moment, you're anchored to the day
and you're living it and loving it. Like the notion
of I'm looking forward to the memories of this this time,
right now. And how beautiful is that? If every day
you can feel that way, and in two years you
can feel that way and you're stacking that up, but
you got to you got to have that mindset. You
got to you got to channel Drake Prix.
S2 (22:25):
Looking forward to the memories of right now I love it.
Ferris Bueller, Dolly Parton and Drake. You can't get that
on any other podcast other than legacy makers. You're not
going to want to miss next month.
S1 (22:35):
This is great. And let me be really clear for
the few listeners we have, we turn the mics on
on this one we had we had no, we're like,
let's just see how this one goes. So that's all
stream of consciousness. You're a talented guy, Kevin.
S2 (22:46):
Let's do it again next month.
S3 (22:48):
Thanks for listening to Legacy Makers with Kevin Scott and
Eric Blumenthal. Make sure you download and subscribe wherever you
get your podcasts. This podcast is a.
S4 (22:58):
Production of BG ad Group. All rights reserved.
Being a dad is hard. It's high stakes. It takes
a toll on our self-worth, mental health and can be lonely.
But why would we ever want to do something so
important in isolation? Legacy makers. A conversation for dads is
quite simply, two normal dads having conversations about, you guessed it,
being a dad. The highs, the lows and the learnings
along the way. We are for dads. We want to
(00:25):
remedy the deficiency we see in community for dads, and
we want to ruthlessly encourage dads on their journey to
build lasting legacy for the faces they love the most.
S2 (00:36):
All right, Eric, back in action. Good to see you.
S1 (00:38):
You too buddy.
S2 (00:39):
So you know, we talk a lot about being dads,
but a lot of it comes back to being husbands too.
And rhythms and routines. I'm curious, do you and Brittany
like what's your go to movies, TV shows, go to
nice dinners. What's a date night?
S1 (00:55):
Oh, well, we used to watch a lot of movies. It's, um.
Now it's like TV shows. I feel almost embarrassed that
I think we've seen everything. There's something about like being
able to 30 to 45 minutes is better. We end
up watching a bunch of them and kind of binge them.
But we we love shows. Um, do.
S2 (01:12):
You have the same taste or do you disagree on them?
S1 (01:14):
Thankfully, it's very similar. Um, like, she's like, she's got
some dark. Like she likes all the books she reads
are like murder mysteries, like that kind of stuff. And, like,
it kind of translates into the shows. Um, but she like.
Which you.
S2 (01:28):
Also like.
S1 (01:29):
I do kind of too. Yeah. For sure.
S2 (01:32):
So I feel like Laura and I are much more
aligned on TV shows, but movies, you know, a few
years older than her and child of the 80s, I'm
trying to get her to like these movies. I mean,
she doesn't like Christmas Vacation, which is a big deal
for us every year. This is bad, the holidays. But
we had an issue a couple weeks ago because we
(01:52):
I wanted to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off. She'd never
seen it.
S1 (01:55):
Oh, my.
S2 (01:56):
Would you like to take just a minute to tell
Laura why she should watch this movie?
S1 (02:00):
It's such a classic movie.
S2 (02:03):
I agree it is a classic one. I think we
all can identify with Ferris. We aspire to be Ferris. Uh,
a little bit of mischief, but Ferris has a line
in the movie that I think we should anchor on
as dads for this one. I love this, he says.
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look
around once in a while, you might miss it. I
(02:27):
think at this point he's like trying to persuade his
friend to skip school. That's not supposed to be. But
the principle still stands that life goes by fast. Being
a dad goes by fast. And if you don't stop
and enjoy those moments. So I'd love to talk for
just a few minutes on one. How do you make
the intentionality to stop and enjoy the moments? And if
(02:47):
we fast forward five years, ten years, 15 years, what
are the moments that we are going to most regret
missing if we are not intentional about them right now?
So any thoughts on that?
S1 (02:59):
Yeah my thought too, on Ferris unfairness is, um, I
think most people aspire to have his, like, mindset of
not worrying about anything. I mean, this guy's he's mischievous,
he's skipping school, he's lying to everybody. He's stealing. What
is it, a Ferrari? What was the red car? Was
(03:20):
it a Ferrari? His buddy's dad's Ferrari. And so I
like I think it's cool, but my gosh, like, having
him as a figure of, like, this is how you
should be a dad is not. Not ideal. Um.
S2 (03:35):
More like a fun uncle or fun uncle.
S1 (03:37):
That's a good way to that. Has a lot of
parental like supervision around. Um, but no, you know what's
so funny? I was thinking it's. I'm thankful that I'm
aware of where I sit right now with my children.
My my oldest just turned 11, and so there's some
dads maybe rolling their eyes because their kids are way
(03:58):
older than that, like, oh, you have all this time. Um,
but I'm thankful that I had this, like, urgency when
cam turned 11 a few weeks ago, knowing that, okay,
he's going to middle like he just started fifth grade,
but middle school is around the corner like it's already
starting where I'm not as cool as I. You know,
he thought that I was. So my fear and I
(04:20):
started to reflect on the things that I might have
missed or didn't maximize was more of the just like
day to day mentioned rhythms, like the day to day
rhythms or interactions that maybe were either rushed or I
wasn't as present in just because they just seem like
it's okay to miss those. Like if we're going to
miss something and these are the ones that it's okay
(04:41):
to miss, we can do. We don't have to do
bedtime routine tonight because I've got this thing I'm working
on because there's every night's a bed night routine, bedtime routine.
And so I'm hopeful that I can really anchor to that, um,
moving forward. Because I do think that's what I'm going
to look back on. I'm like, dude, like, you really
didn't have to do those emails. like from 8 to
(05:03):
9:00 when you could have been hanging out with them,
you know. So I don't think it's going to be
looking back and say, I wish the Disney trip was
better or we did this beat. I think the big
things were going to hit because they're big things. But
I do think it's the day to day.
S2 (05:16):
So I'm rereading the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown. We
may have talked about that in a previous episode. We
talked about the word priority. And he quotes in there Bonnie, Bonnie,
where she's quoted like, if any leadership book, you find
this one study from this Australian hospice nurse who chronicled
(05:37):
the five biggest regrets of her patients when they were dying.
So I know, here we go, here we go. I'd
love to just let's kind of go through those, because
I want to figure out if we're trying to play offense,
if we're trying to get ahead of those regrets. I'm
curious kind of how we think we're doing and where
(05:58):
we may have some work. So you want me to
give you one at a time or five in a row?
S1 (06:01):
Yeah. No, I think one at a time. There's only
one depressing episode.
S2 (06:06):
A great, depressing episode. Okay, so number one, number one regret.
She says of all the people she's sitting by all
these people when they're dying. Biggest regrets? Number one, I
wish I'd had the courage to live a life true
to myself, not the life others expected of me. Apply
that to being a dad. Man, I just I realize
(06:31):
that my parenting is different in public than it is
in private, because I care an awful lot what other
people think about me. And I even think the decisions
I make of you were talking about what things to
miss or not miss. Most of the time when I
make a decision to miss something, for me, it's not
about just working harder. It's usually something where I don't
want to disappoint somebody else. And almost always, the person
(06:55):
that I'm not trying to disappoint loves me a lot
less than my wife and kids do.
S1 (07:00):
Yeah, that's convicting. It's funny, I was telling you the
story earlier today. Brittany and I have a monthly brunch
on our calendar that, um. It's just like a recurring
kind of this, this day of, you know, once a month.
And I canceled it today because I had a bunch
of other stuff going on and had to run around,
and my brain was, well, we were together. We just
(07:21):
went on a big trip, um, a one on one trip,
and we had eight days together. That was my. But
I didn't speak that out to her. I just said, hey.
And so as I was leaving, she was like, oh,
what are you doing later today? And I was like,
you know, Kevin and I are going to get to this,
this and this, and then I'll be home after Kevin
and I do a couple, you know, we're going to
do a podcast episode. They said, oh, she's like, it's
(07:43):
interesting that that didn't get moved around, like to make
room for the things you had to do this morning.
And I was like, but we were just, you know,
I get it, I got it. But we were together
for eight days. Like I just said, she's like, I
don't care. Like, you know. And it was like that
reminder to your point of what? Who do you want
(08:05):
to get an A plus from?
S2 (08:07):
And I think that's big. If we want to live
a life and be the dad with no regrets, that
that one is big to me, like being true to
myself and I would say my family. Yeah, not just
the people that I, for some reason care about impressing.
All right, number one, are you ready for number two?
I feel like this one we talk about a lot.
(08:27):
The other three might get a little iffy here. The
second one is, I wish I wouldn't have worked so hard. Now,
this is a tension for me because we have said
multiple times on this podcast, this is not the podcast
that says like, man, you got to quit your job.
If you're going to be a good dad, you should
not work hard, right? Where do you find the line here?
S1 (08:46):
I think, um, I agree with the sentiment of that.
If it starts to become you, can you more often
than not are choosing work over yourself and your family.
And I really intentionally say yourself first there because we've
talked about that whole like oxygen mask analogy. I'm so
(09:09):
much better when I'm and it's not like a full
day to by myself, but like when I start the
day the way I need to, I'm just so much
better to my family. But I do think to me,
I think hard work is really, really important. But I've
had moments in my life where it was it was
too important. It was more important. On what was the
the loves. Remember what you were telling me about? Like
(09:31):
the disordered loves, loves.
S2 (09:32):
It's not that we love the wrong things, it's that
we love the right things and the wrong.
S1 (09:37):
That's how I would react to that. It's when. When
work is in the wrong order in the list of
your loves. It's a problem for sure.
S2 (09:46):
It's good. Let's go with this one. The third biggest regret.
So number one, courage to live a life true to myself,
not the one others expected of me. Number two hadn't
worked so hard. Number three, I'm going to hate this
one right here. I wish I'd had the courage to
express my feelings. A couple episodes ago, we were talking
about your Olympic trip, and we were talking about encouragement
(10:08):
and how some of us, like we struggle to we,
like me, struggle to express the encouragement because. Not because
we don't feel it. Because we feel like we can't
express that or say it. I feel like you're better
at this. Maybe.
S1 (10:24):
Um, yes and no. I don't see that's the thing, too.
Sometimes I'm actually better with my friends now than I
ever was because I worked at it. So, you know,
the impetus of a lot of these conversations was I
went through a really hard time and didn't talk to
anybody about it because of pride or many other reasons.
And I've been so thoughtful about breaking that down, oftentimes
(10:48):
because of work, because of just how busy life is.
Sometimes I'll sit there and be with bread. At the
end of the day, I'm like, it's just easier to
go to bed, you know, like it's it's more of
a lazy thing and that I realize that that is
a big problem. But it's. But I don't know when
you when you say you're going to hate it. What
about that? Do you hate just because you're you?
S2 (11:09):
I don't know. I really don't know what it is
that I can't. My coach and I like to say
coach because then it makes me feel like it's not
a therapist, but it's my business coach. But my business
coach says a lot of times that I'm not. I
don't express my feelings because I'm so attuned to what
everybody else thinks. I don't know what they really like.
I'm feeling this way, but my feelings are often a
(11:30):
response to are these other people happy? Are they sad?
Are they disappointed? And so figuring out. But this is
an area that I'm going to say publicly because Laura
will hold me accountable if I say it on this
podcast is an area that I want to get better. Yeah,
I find that it's easier for me to express my
feelings on stage in front of a thousand people than
it is one on one.
S1 (11:51):
Yeah, I agree. I see it with my boys. Oftentimes
I try to get underneath. How are you feeling? Like
after a hard situation or a game and I can
see it. I don't know if it's a my girls
are too little, so we'll see if it's consistent. But
I'm trying to pull out from my boys. What do
you feel about this? And in fact, one of the
(12:11):
ways I've talked to Ben at my my middle son,
he he's very, um, to himself when it comes, like
when things are not when he's not feeling well, he's
just like everything's in. And we have this analogy where
I talk about, imagine, get your backpack and we're going
to put a bunch of rocks and bricks in it,
and you and I are going to go around and
walk around the little pond out back and as you
(12:32):
speak and like, imagine us taking some of these rocks
out of your backpack. And how much lighter does it
get as you can. That's like almost this visual to
him about buddy. Like what you're keeping inside is preventing you.
It's heavy. You know what I mean? Trying to, like,
demonstrate to him so he can understand, like, the impact
of not letting some of that out. You know what
(12:53):
I'm saying? Because I'm trying to get them to understand
that early.
S2 (12:56):
I think it's good. And I want to just. I'll
encourage you that I feel like you're leading the way
on this a lot because I love to, you know?
Bust your chops when on some of these other things.
But I remember getting a text message from you this summer,
just sharing about a moment and a story that you
were talking about, and you just said, this is the
last part of your text message, like just sharing this
(13:17):
because it felt timely as we strive for endurance and encouragement.
And I feel like when we have the courage to
do it, to share our feelings and be open, we
give other people the permission that they're looking for to
do the same.
S1 (13:30):
So, well, I would just add to that the thing
to be careful of, though, when you do that and
share your feelings, it cannot be because I need something reciprocated.
It has to be because it's it's for you to share.
It's for someone else. Because, you know, in that situation,
if I wanted to share that personal thing with you
(13:51):
and but I was needing something back and I put
that on you, that's not fair to you to give
me what I need. And that can be a challenge.
S2 (13:57):
It's really good. Number four. Man, I think this is
this is when strikes at the heart of what we're
trying to do in building a community. Number four is
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Oh,
she's sitting there. People are dying. They're like, man, I
wish I would have stayed better in touch with my friends.
But in this season of life, married, crazy job schedule, travel,
(14:19):
young kids. I'm finding that hard to do. It's hard now.
Text message. Man, I we can I can tear up
some group text, like sending memes and that kind of stuff.
But really staying in touch with my friends seems really tough.
S1 (14:33):
Yeah, I won't name him because he's I don't want
to give him public credit for for this, but, uh,
Travis k Travis, um, you know, he's one of my
best friends. You know, Travis and we're on a group chat.
Same thing. Like, we're all in the same. We're all
in the same season of life. Bunch of kids. And
he said something really convicting recently. He sent us a me,
(14:53):
and there's three other guys, Travis. There's four of us total.
And he's like, man, like, we we need to do
a better job. And we were all kind of like, well, yeah, man,
we talk all the time on here. He's like no,
like to talk like it shouldn't be that hard for
us to speak, because the first response was, hey man,
we're on this group chat all the time. And the
next guy was, hey, we're playing golf in a couple weeks.
And he was like, no, like to talk. Like, it
(15:13):
shouldn't be that hard. And I was like, man, like.
And he's right and it's hard. You got to find time.
But it's the top five thing this hospice lady heard.
And it makes sense. But it can be challenging in
this season with the kids and running in different directions.
But trying to carve that time out.
S2 (15:30):
You know, we think about it a lot related to
our spouses that one day the kids are going to
be out of the house and hopefully we've we've got
the relationship with each other that we want to hang
out and do life together. But I also think there's
going to come a time where we have more of
that bandwidth for friends and you understand the season you're in,
but you don't want to get down the road and
have not nurtured friendships for 20 years and have to
(15:53):
start fresh. That's right. So I love there's an old, uh,
Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers sang a song called You
Can't Make Old Friends And, you know, I just love
that we have Dolly Parton on the podcast.
S1 (16:05):
But she's one of your favorite artists for sure.
S2 (16:07):
But this is your target audience here. But I love that. Like,
there's just something about those friendships and finding a way
to nurture them. So last one, you've hit on this
a lot when we talk. I'm curious your thoughts on
this number five biggest regret of the dying. I wish
I had let myself be happier.
S1 (16:26):
Yeah. Wow. The interesting word on that is let myself. Like,
when I hear that, I'm almost. I just take a
pause and I wonder sometimes what how often am I
not allowing myself to be happy? That's a that's a heavy,
heavy one for me because I want, you know, to me,
(16:48):
I think it's some of the things we talk about
is just the pressure on everybody, all the different things
going on in our minds, the 24 seven kind of
world we live in, from the fully connected news media
cycle with work, there's never really hey, I'm going to
leave this at the door at 5 p.m. schedule. So
it's there's a lot going on there. But I do
(17:09):
think taking the step back and understanding, like what? What
do you really want to be? What do you want
out of this life with especially with your family? Like
what do you want? Quite simply. And trying to drill
down to the simple, you know.
S2 (17:24):
It's not about being self-serving, but I'm a better dad
when I'm in a better mood. Yes. Like when I'm happier,
I'm a better husband. I'm a better dad. I'm a
better person to work with. And so how do we
find this balance of focusing on others and serving others,
while making sure that we put our oxygen mask on first? Yeah,
(17:44):
I think.
S1 (17:44):
We had a whole we talked about this in one
of our earlier episodes on the importance of of self
and everybody's routine and thing to be. You know, self-care
is going to be different. And I think we got
to really take a step back if we're struggling with
that and realize, okay, what is it that I need
for myself to show up in that way? Because that's
really the key to your point. Man, when I start
(18:06):
my days the right way. When I'm connected the way
I need to be connected, I'm such a different person.
You know, the distraction isn't as heavy. But I also
think it's it's really we've talked we, you know, again,
another previous conversation, the importance of anchoring to right now.
Like of course understand what the future needs to be
and all your goals. But anchor to the day to
that's really all that we have. As as cliche as
(18:28):
that is.
S2 (18:29):
You know, I'm turning these from the negative and putting
them in the positive because if if that's the regret
down the road, you know, I regret these five things
I wish, I wish, I wish and you're saying we
should anchor to right now. What are the things I
need to do right now to not have those regrets
down the road? So it's, you know, have the courage
(18:50):
to be true to myself, not what others expect of me.
Don't work so hard. Not that we shouldn't work hard,
but we shouldn't let the pursuit of hard work get
in the way of our relationships. Have the courage to
express my feelings. Man, that one's tough. Stay in touch
with our friends and let yourself be happy. I would
just be curious from you. Are there certain practices what
(19:12):
are just revisiting? What are the daily disciplines? What do
you do to keep yourself on track so that this
doesn't get lost?
S1 (19:19):
So I don't know if it's a daily thing, but
I'll tell you everything that these five regrets to me
right now with what I have ahead of me. Hopefully
it's a count. To me, it's accountability. Like we as dads, moms, dads, men,
women be accountable. All these things that let myself be happy,
(19:41):
you know, I wish I would have stayed in contact
with friends. They are all driven by somebody at some point,
lost sight of what was important, and they weren't accountable
to the main thing or the main things, and that's
what they drift. They experience massive drift over time. We're
going to get to the end of our days. I
don't care if you did everything perfectly and you had
(20:01):
the perfect relationships and you never missed a moment, we're
going to get to the end of our days and
we're going to want more time. We're going to wish
we had more things. That is universally true, but it's
more regret. When you're not accountable, you've got to set
your sights on what is the most important things, and
then you got to set it and kind of put
(20:21):
it out there, and you've got to show up every
day and be accountable to doing those things. And if
you start to drift, you better get back on track
as quickly as possible, because that little one degree drift
could end up being a massive, massive detour down the
line that you're going to have to come back from.
S2 (20:35):
We can hit this in a future episode, but as
you're talking about this, I'm like, I'm nodding my head
because I'm like, that's how I think about business. Like,
you got to put the goal out and we got
to stay focused on it and we're drifting. We're going
to go back, or are we at our true north?
And for some reason, it is easier to hold myself
accountable and be intentional doing that in the business environment
(20:56):
than it is in the family environment. And I don't
know why that is, but I think it's key All right.
Land the plane. Ferris Bueller says life moves pretty fast.
If you don't stop and look around once in a while,
you might miss it. I think we're going to get
to the end a lot faster than we realize. Yeah,
a lot faster than we want. And I want to
(21:16):
make sure we're doing it with as little regrets as possible.
S1 (21:19):
I love it. You know, you talk about Ferris Bueller
and you're quoting him. I'm going to quote Drake, who
may not be ever relevant again. Drake may he may
never be relevant again. Kevin, I know you're a big
Dolly Parton fan, but if you haven't been paying attention,
there's been a very bad thing that's happened to Drake
based on what Kendrick Lamar has done to him with
some songs. Okay. He's just not. He's basically done. He's been.
(21:42):
So you're going.
S2 (21:43):
To close this out with.
S1 (21:43):
Drake? I'm going to give him I'm going to revive
Drake's career, his career, giving him a shout out on
this podcast. I forget the name of the song, but
he had this. One of his lines was, I'm looking
forward to the memories of right now. And he rapped
it just like I said it like this. Very looking
forward to the memories of right now. Um, but I
love that. I love, I love that thought. Like, if
you're present enough to know, like this is the time.
(22:06):
Like you're in this moment, you're anchored to the day
and you're living it and loving it. Like the notion
of I'm looking forward to the memories of this this time,
right now. And how beautiful is that? If every day
you can feel that way, and in two years you
can feel that way and you're stacking that up, but
you got to you got to have that mindset. You
got to you got to channel Drake Prix.
S2 (22:25):
Looking forward to the memories of right now I love it.
Ferris Bueller, Dolly Parton and Drake. You can't get that
on any other podcast other than legacy makers. You're not
going to want to miss next month.
S1 (22:35):
This is great. And let me be really clear for
the few listeners we have, we turn the mics on
on this one we had we had no, we're like,
let's just see how this one goes. So that's all
stream of consciousness. You're a talented guy, Kevin.
S2 (22:46):
Let's do it again next month.
S3 (22:48):
Thanks for listening to Legacy Makers with Kevin Scott and
Eric Blumenthal. Make sure you download and subscribe wherever you
get your podcasts. This podcast is a.
S4 (22:58):
Production of BG ad Group. All rights reserved.
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