July 24, 2025 • 51 mins
You've never heard parenting wisdom quite like this. Step into the world of Paul Morton, a Scottish father, sales leadership expert, and podcast host who brings a completely fresh perspective on raising resilient children in today's overprotective society.
Raised in the remote Scottish Highlands by a single mother in the 1970s and 80s, Paul learned independence in ways that would make many modern parents uncomfortable – cycling miles alone as a young boy, handling injuries without immediate adult help, and developing self-reliance in isolated environments. Now raising his own children in Edinburgh with his American wife, he's carrying forward those lessons while navigating our increasingly bubble-wrapped parenting culture.
"We're not raising children," Paul observes with characteristic Scottish directness. "We're raising adults." This philosophy forms the cornerstone of his approach to fatherhood – allowing his son and daughter to experience appropriate risks and challenges rather than sheltering them from every possible discomfort. The results? Children who handle their own injuries with remarkable calm, develop independence early, and build the internal resilience needed for life's inevitable hardships.
Paul's reflections on his childhood illuminate how dramatically parenting has changed in just one generation. Where he once cycled miles alone to activities as a young boy, today's children are often driven everywhere and supervised constantly. He argues persuasively that this overprotection ultimately harms children by preventing them from developing crucial coping mechanisms: "If you don't let them fail, get hurt, break a leg, then how are they gonna deal with life? Because when they meet the universe as a whole, it's a rough old place."
Beyond parenting wisdom, Paul shares insights from his professional experience in leadership and his current project, "Second Wind Life" – focused on helping people navigate midlife transitions by repositioning their purpose and value. His unique blend of faith-based perspective, business acumen, and refreshing honesty creates an episode that will challenge your thinking and inspire your parenting journey.
Whether you're seeking practical advice for raising independent children or simply enjoy thought-provoking conversations about life's biggest responsibilities, this episode offers wisdom that crosses cultural boundaries and speaks to universal parenting truths. Listen now and discover why sometimes the most loving thing we can do for our children is to let them face challenges on their own.
You can learn more about Paul on LInkedIn or at www.leadershipthatsells.com
Please don't forget to leave us a review wherever you consume your podcasts! Please help us get more dads to listen weekly and become the ultimate leader of their homes!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, I'm Riley and I'm Ryder and this is my dad show.
Hey, everybody, it's CaseyJaycox with the quarterback dad
cast.
Welcome to season six, and Icould not be more excited to
have you join me for anotheryear of fantastic episodes and
conversations really unscriptedand raw and authentic
(00:24):
conversations with dads.
If you're new to this podcast,really it's simple.
It's a podcast where weinterview dads, we learn about
how they were raised, we learnabout the life lessons that were
important to them, we learnabout the values that are
important to them and really welearn about how we can work hard
to become a better quarterbackor leader of our home.
So let's sit back, relax andlisten to today's episode on the
Quarterback Dadcast.
(00:45):
Well, hey, everybody, it'sCasey Jaycox with the
Quarterback Dadcast.
We are in season six and thisnext guest I went across the
pond, everybody.
I went over to Edinburgh.
I wish I could say I'm going to, we're going to meet in St
(01:10):
Andrews or we're going to meetin Arnusty, but we're not.
We're going to meet in eachother's living rooms or bedrooms
or wherever the house is.
That's how we are.
But our next guest is PaulMorton.
He is really a sales andleadership and executive very,
very talented, very, verytalented man.
He runs a practical leadershipacademy, he's a podcast host,
he's the CEO of a VR trainingcompany, guy's got opera skills.
But that's not why we're havinghim on.
We're having him on because wewant to learn about Paul the dad
and how he's working hard tobecome that ultimate quarterback
or leader of his household.
So, without further ado, mrMorton, welcome to the
(01:31):
Quarterback Dadcast.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Casey, it's an absolute delight to be here.
Absolute delight, what anintroduction.
We're done, we're done.
You give me your bank details.
I'll just send you the money.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Perfect, perfect.
Well, we always start out eachepisode gratitude, so tell me,
what are you most grateful foras a dad today?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
oh uh god's love um and his uh peace and his
faithfulness through everythingum, and the fact that my
children know him as well, andfor my family around me and
having married an amazing woman.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Love it Amazing woman .
Most good marriages.
We marry up Paul.
We have kicked it.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
There's a great country song, fabulous country
song.
It says I'm just trying to keepmy daughter off the pole and my
sons out of jail.
And trying to keep my daughteroff the pole and my sons out of
jail, I'm trying to keep my wifefrom finding out that I married
up and she married way, waydown.
It's a great song.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Oh boy.
Well, what I'm grateful for.
I am in a different locationtoday, everybody.
We are in Eastern Washingtonand I'm grateful to spend time
this weekend with my son and hisgood buddy, and my daughter is
at home with her friends and sokind of everybody's doing their
own thing this weekend.
(02:57):
And it's because I have afreshman in college well, now, a
sophomore in college, whichseems weird to say, and then a
senior in high school to be andjust grateful for the time.
And every day when I do mygratitude journal work, the
first line I always say is God,thanks for waking me up today.
I get another day.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It's the start.
You know.
Sometimes you're thinking it'stough.
Okay, what am I actually doing?
We do this at the dinner aswell.
I mean, we give thanks and wesay well, what are you grateful
for today?
And sometimes the kids arenothing.
And sometimes they come out andsay broccoli or steak or
(03:35):
whatever it is.
But my wife is superb.
She says how about runningwater?
yeah, you know you get you there.
You always something you can,always something you start with.
And there's a guy that is apastor of my church.
He says something you know,sometimes you think about the
things you would really not wantto be taken away and you see,
uh, he's got a friend in awheelchair and he says, God,
(03:56):
thank you for my feet that work,you know.
Thank you for walking, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Waking up every day.
Waking up every day is a goodstart.
It's amazing and it's funny Iwas.
I tell a lot of my clients is,when I'm doing gratitude work in
the morning, I find myselfsubconsciously starting to smile
you can't help it yeah, andit's just getting your mind
right to start the day is soimportant that I wish other most
people would do it, but theydon't and it sets you.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I mean, I mean, you want to.
You want to work out in themorning as well.
That's great, You're.
What's your?
What's your 5am Ironman startto the day?
Well, it's two serious cups ofBrazilian coffee as well, but
it's, I think, having a smilefor the day and the start of the
day, knowing that it's it'slife and everything else that
(04:45):
comes after it is what it is youjust take it as you find it.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yep, Love it.
Well, bring me inside theMorton Huddle Talk about.
You know come from a sportstheme, so I played this position
called quarterback in anAmerica football team.
I always make fun of myself.
There's a great movie I'm notsure if you've heard about it
called Napoleon Dynamite.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I've heard of it.
I can't say.
I know the theme.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, so it's a really goofy American movie, but
there's a character named UncleRico and it's this uncle that
really is like living out of thehigh school dreams and he talks
about throwing the ball up inthe mountains.
So whenever I talk about mycollege football days, I got to
make fun of myself and callmyself Uncle Rico.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
But joking aside, let's go inside the huddle, tell
me about each member of theteam and what everybody's up to.
I think there's the four of us,but there's really the five,
and the five is the family unit,the unit as a whole, and it
gets stressed from time to time.
And it gets stressed from timeto time and it gets pulled from
pillar to post.
And I think, like any sort ofteam that you try to build in
(05:51):
life or in business, before youcan let it get stressed and deal
with all the stuff that getsthrown at you, you have to know
what's important and you have toknow that everybody else has
got your back and I would saythe very best teams I've ever
worked in have done exactly thatalmost serendipitously.
And again, the family I thinkis almost serendipitously I'd
(06:13):
like to say it's fatherhoodplanning here.
I know exactly what I'm doing.
I'm leading them forwardthrough the church.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
No, that's absolute bs it's.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I think it's as a result of who we, the unit, are.
So, each member in turn.
Well, we'll start with thegreatest and best, and that
would be my wonderful wife, andshe is a fellow of yours.
She's born in Missouri and shewas raised in New Jersey and
came over here looking for MrDarcy from Pride and Prejudice
and landed up with me.
A random Scots bloke from thesouth side of Glasgow, right, so
(06:48):
I am not Mr Darcy.
Mr Darcy would be the firstline of the book.
The Pride and Prejudice is alongthe lines of a man who has
10,000 a year must surely be inwant of a wife.
10,000 a year, 10,000 pounds ayear, something like 40 million
pounds these days.
Okay, so he was really well off.
No, sorry, honey, I'm doing mybest and not quite there yet,
(07:11):
give me time.
So she's magnificent.
Um, and when she's not drivingeveryone around, pillar to post,
taking us, taking everybodyeverywhere, there's the three,
three, three jobs of a parentright, taxi, short order, chef
and laundromat, oh, and theoccasional hug.
That's the three things.
So she keeps us coordinated.
(07:32):
She's a phenomenal projectmanager a phenomenal organizer
and so in touch with people.
She has a beautiful gift ofhaving a five minute
conversation with somebody andthen seeing them again six years
later and saying oh now yousaid your cousin's hamster had a
bit of a limp.
(07:53):
How the heck does she rememberthis stuff?
She connects with people insuch a level.
This is a beautiful gift.
She also looks after us, keepsus, keeps us very, very healthy.
She's a great cook, um, a veryprofessional woman, but she's a
great cook.
She loves, uh, finding herbsand spices and things in the
(08:14):
wilderness and pulling themtogether and making us all sorts
of concoctions.
That keeps us healthy and wise.
And she's introduced my sonwell, so they introduce each
other to foraging.
So they go in, they all findmushrooms and they um, pull
things off, little berries andplants and flowers together and
make tinctures and all sorts ofweird and wonderful things.
It's just phenomenal.
(08:34):
And then we'll go from the bestto the the shortest for the
moment, which is only very, veryjust the shortest and that
would be my son, and he, he's 11and is the philosopher king, so
he's a very wise young man, butalso likes doing wheelies on
his bike, so he's a very smart,smart, smart kid.
(08:55):
They're all fairly sporty.
He's a good swimmer.
He likes, likes his swimming,as does my daughter as well.
Um, and he's very creative,very inventive.
Um, one word for me, and he'soften pretty much the opposite
(09:15):
thing, but he's a good lad.
Um, my daughter is a specialcharacter.
She's, she's 13, going on 17.
And we do the best, I do mybest, to keep it to the 13, but
she does her best to keep it tothe 17.
Most of our communications areDad, can I have more screen time
?
No, no, no, you can't Bless her.
(09:39):
She doesn't complain too much.
She's a club they're both clubswimmers, but she's a superb
club swimmer club.
They're both club swimmers, butshe's a superb club swimmer.
She's got some really, reallygood times.
She's swum for our county aswell, which is a nice thing, and
here the counties are like thestates.
So Hampshire County, where welive, is about two and a half
million people, so she's swum inthe county for that and is a
(10:00):
great athlete.
She's been invited to go for thecounty athletics tournament in
a couple of weeks' time, gettingclose to the end of term, here
to do the shot putt.
Yes, indeed, the shot puttbecause she's got shoulders,
because she does fly.
You know I've got a magnificentpicture of my wall up here of
her doing fly.
She's got the arms like aneagle.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
It's amazing, it's a wonderful thing.
So, yes, and it's amazing, it'sa wonderful thing, so yes.
And then the unit comestogether and we eat dinner
together, if not every night,then 99%, and we have our Sunday
lunch together 99% of the time,and we spend a lot of good hugs
(10:45):
, we have a lot of good.
We have our challenges, forsure, but I think the unit is
it's not one one.
One one equals four.
It's one plus one plus oneequals 643.
So, as a unit, I think we'restrong.
We're strong.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Now were you or your wife swimmers?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
My wife became one.
She did some swimming in herearly 20s but she taught me how
to swim.
I could swim.
In fact, my kids say, no, dad,you know how not to drown.
Which was true, I know how notto drown, but she taught me
properly how to actually breatheand all that sort of stuff.
So I'm late to the game.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Okay, I always like now taking a little pivot here.
Paul and I want to go back intime and I want to learn about
what was life like for Paulgrowing up, and I want to learn
about the impact Paul's mom anddad had on him and maybe tell us
a story or two on the valuesthat were taught to you and
instilled in you early.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Hmm, my parents divorced when I was three, which
in 1979 or thereabouts was athing.
Okay, so a single parent, mymother.
I was raised by her and she didher very best and did a
phenomenal job.
I got to know my father againas an adult.
I came down after university.
(12:08):
We stayed vaguely in touch andI met, we came to, I got got
together a few times but westayed vaguely in touch.
And I met him again as an adultwhen I came down for a job
interview in london, havinglived in scotland and kind of.
We picked up a relationshipthere.
But it really blossomed when I12, 13, whatever it was years
later introduced him to my wife.
(12:28):
So he came to our wedding andhe's turned out to be a really
good granddad, mostly because Ithink his wife, his new wife of
40 odd years, is a phenomenalwoman.
So she's Nanny Fran.
So she's a phenomenal woman and, without children of their own,
have absolutely adopted anddoted on ours and they're the
(12:49):
closest people to us physically.
My mother is what?
Seven hours by train or three,400 miles away, and my dad's 90
miles away and about an hour anda half, two hours by car.
So it's a lot closer.
So we still see my mum moreoften because she actually puts
her back into it and makes itmakes a journey down from
scotland every six weeks, soshe's down here for a good long
(13:10):
weekend, which is wonderful, andI've seen more of her, uh,
since the kids were born than Ihad.
I've seen her through my adultlife.
You know, you've seen thatgraph where you know you, your
contact time with your childrenis incredibly high and then it
just drops like an absolutebrick until you get old and it
picks up again when they can'tstart to pay attention to you
(13:31):
because you're frail.
Well, thankfully we've actuallyforeshortened that slightly
because of her effort in comingdown and seeing us so very often
.
So as a little boy we moved.
The story comes that I came homefrom the streets of Glasgow one
day in the late 1970s, whichwas a bit of a rough place, and
(13:55):
gave my mother a mouth full ofGlasgow street parlance, so to
speak, effing and blinding ather, to which my um, not
puritanical but quitestraight-laced mother said oh, I
think it's time to move out ofthe big city to which we moved,
to the middle of nowhere, infact, the terminology I would
(14:15):
use would be the back arse ofbeyond.
In fact, you get to the middleof nowhere.
You turn left, you keep drivingfor another 100 miles and you
get to the back arse of beyond.
It's really in the middle ofnowhere, a tiny place called the
Bridge of Orchie which, ifanybody wants to look it up on a
map, is in the highlands ofScotland and it's on a train
(14:37):
line.
Far, far north there was asingle teacher school.
She was a teacher, so shetaught there.
She was teaching in inner cityGlasgow and then went from a big
school with hundreds andhundreds of kids to eight kids,
so eight kids, one head teacher.
She was a head teacherimmediately.
Aha, very clever.
And I had a mountain as my backgarden.
(14:58):
I had a loch as a swimming poolNot that you would swim in it,
because it was seven degrees allyear round it's cold up there
but it was a phenomenal place togrow up.
And we moved from there to theWest Coast, the far far West.
Have you ever seen a map ofScotland?
There's a little leg thatsticks out in the left on the
West Coast, pointing downtowards Ireland, the island of
(15:20):
Ireland, and that's a thingcalled kentire, and right down
the bottom of that again the,the buttocks of this island.
There's this pokey archipelagostick.
Uh is right next to an americanair force base.
Mackinac air force base iswhere they had all the nuclear
bombers.
So we had no problems.
Cold war, millisecond ofblinding light vapor.
(15:41):
So we were right the way downthere for several years and then
came back to the borders, therolling hills of Scotland again.
So I was blessed by lots andlots of wildlife, lots of
wilderness, lots of outdoorsness, and I think the overarching
(16:02):
thing I took away from that wasmake friends, connect, be able
to connect with people and bevery comfortable in your own
skin, because you're gonna havea long time and it's all you've
got.
It's only when you'll be ableto rely on.
So I don't have friends from myand I have acquaintances from
my early childhood.
Really ish, but not really.
I make friends relativelyeasily and I'm very comfortable
(16:28):
in my own skin, very happy on myown.
But I'm equally relativelygregarious.
I think I'm probably borderlineintroverted, but I'm quite
happy doing the outside stuff aswell.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
So what, um?
How was it?
Was the?
Was the divorce difficult onyou growing up?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Didn't know, didn't notice.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
No idea.
Three years old.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah, it was just normal, it was just.
Isn't everybody like that?
And then eventually you get,you get to work it out, you work
it out.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Did your mom ever remarry?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
No, she uh said her, her, her shtick was uh, the
first one didn't take, I'm notdoing it again.
And she was very conscious andvery cautious and very sensible
about not introducing any othermen into her, into my life
really so I know she dated, shehad friends and all this sort of
stuff.
But she met a wonderful man whenI was about 14 but didn't move
(17:28):
in with him until I moved out.
So I went off to universitywhen I was 18 and when I was 19
she had sold the house and movedin with him and they had 30
wonderful years together untilhe died a few years ago.
So but she she's no other's anamazing woman.
In fact, she is the 100thepisode of my own podcast,
(17:50):
leadership that Sells.
So if you want to listen to meinterviewing my mom, who was the
consummate, extra dependentleader because she was leading a
team of teachers, and teacherswork very similarly to
salespeople they don't worktogether, but they work towards
their own individual goal.
So she's a great leader forthem.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Wow, what were the values that mom taught you, that
really really stood out to you,that maybe you've shared with
your son or your daughter, sure.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I would love to say faith, but that's not true.
She was always a strong and hasforever been a strong Christian
.
But she let me find my own path, and I think that's possibly.
I think that's probably it.
Find your own path, be happy,but know what happiness is.
It's not clappy happy joy.
(18:47):
Joy, it's contentment, it's, itis joy.
It's uh, joy.
In the morning it is, it's,it's the sunrise, it's that,
it's happiness.
And whenever I would ask mom,what do you want me to be when I
grow up, she wouldn't say adoctor or an engineer or
whatever.
It was because I, because I wasa smart kid, I was a smarty
(19:07):
pants, you know all that sort ofstuff, but she would say happy,
that's no use.
That's no use Be useful.
But it was, I think, to meetthe world as you find it, treat
the world.
Yeah, I think I said meet theworld as you find it, treat the
(19:28):
world.
Yeah, I think that's it.
Meet the world as you find itand then chart your own path
towards whatever happiness meansfor you.
I think that's.
I've never actually thoughtabout that question before.
Can you believe it?
It's something I would askpeople, but I've never really
thought it through.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, I think that's it okay when you, when you, when
you think about find your path,or let let she, let you find
your own path.
Um, that can be hard for forparents at least I don't bet in
the states.
Sometimes, like in the unitedstates, we get I don't know if
it's like this in Europe, butyou know it's you get so wrapped
up into the sport or theactivity and you want to, like,
(20:11):
help them be their best scene.
But kids got to fail,unfortunately, and that's where
we get the adversity and gritand resilience and life that
they're going to need later downthe path.
So was there any moments ofstruggle or failure for you that
you reflect on?
Now that you are like a youknow sales leadership guy in
business and a dad that maybeyour mom, let you just kind of
(20:32):
struggle through.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Do you want them alphabetically, numerologically
or chronologically?
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Maybe just give me a favorite one that maybe you've
shared with your kids.
That kind of just keepseverybody grounded.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Failure.
My goodness, I think it's allabout the context, isn't it?
It's like the stories of thekid going off to learn to ride
their bike and he falls off, andthe parent turns to the
neighbor and says oh yeah, he'sa bit of a faller.
You know?
No, he's a learner.
(21:04):
This is what he's a bit of afaller, you know, it's?
No, it's he's.
He's a learner, he's this iswhat he's doing.
Um, so I think it's whether,whether, whether I'm losing the
power of speech here whether itwas quite literally learning to
ride a bike on a side of amountain, which is harder than I
think you think.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Um, and as a second hand thing as well, because we
never had any money you know,single parent, teaching job,
public sector in Scotland in theearly eighties not well paid to
realizing that you can be assmart as you like, but if you
don't actually have the socialskills to back it up, you're in
(21:41):
a lot of trouble and learning tokeep your mouth shut.
That's a big one, I think.
Dealing with people, learningto deal with people.
And she pushed me out to go toscouts or to judo or to my
tennis or whatever it was, and Iwas put on the bike and said
(22:03):
it's over there, we'll go, I'lldrive you there, but you need to
remember where it is becauseyou're cycling there tomorrow.
Okay, wow.
All right, three miles in thedark in Scotland with no
streetlights.
This is what you do, okay, andnobody's walking you in.
(22:23):
Nobody ever did that.
Parents didn't walk you in andsit with you.
It's like go on, get on with it, go.
It's kind of a different styleof parenting than we have, I
think.
But, as you said, theresilience of just getting out
and getting on and you fall overand skin your knee.
(22:43):
You're two miles from anywhere.
What are you going to do?
Sit there and wait for someoneto pick you up?
Oh, okay, you'll be waiting fora while, you just have to get
on with it.
And it is excruciatinglydifficult to do that with my own
children, but I think we'vebeen very good at it to the
(23:03):
extent where either of them I'veseen it, I've seen them both
multiple times come in coveredin blood, covered in blood, and
you're thinking, oh, my goodness, what's going on?
And they're just going.
Oh, yeah, I've done this.
You're thinking, oh, okay, theyjust wash it off, do whatever
it is.
Oh, I've got blood everywhere.
(23:24):
They just wash it off, dowhatever it is.
I'm going back outside, alright.
Then they just bounce and yousee, I know everybody thinks
their kids are special.
I know my kids are specialbecause I'm different, right, of
course you see in comparisonother other results of parenting
not the kids, but other resultsof parenting not the kids, but
(23:45):
it's other results of parenting.
Okay, um ppp, we call it piss,poor parenting.
Other results of parenting withother children out there and
they buy it, they fall overwhatever it is and it's a scream
and the parent then destroys itby running forwards and going
oh no, it's a disaster.
It's not a disaster, it'spainful.
The kids needs help.
But if you don't let them fail,get hurt, break a leg, then then
(24:14):
what is life gonna gonna gonna,how's like?
How are they gonna deal withlife?
Because when they meet theuniverse as a whole, it's a
rough old place.
Bones will still break.
You know it's a rough old placeand you've got to get on with
it.
And I think then that lack ofresilience translates, which is
(24:36):
the response to something,translates equally into a lack
of courage in the attack forsomething.
So you've got the proactive andthe reactive, and if your
reactive nature is to panic andlook for help or whatever it is,
then that feeds your proactivenature and it stops you seeking
(24:58):
it, stops you managing it, stopsyou going through towards risk,
because your nature is one ofcaution and cotton wool.
So, if you are not, you don'thave the, the JFDI, which is
just flaming.
Well, do it then, for what youcan do, life, because as soon as
(25:21):
you start meeting the rest ofhumanity, the rest of humanity
is not out for themselves but,yeah, out for themselves.
They're not going to spoon feedyou anything.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
So, yeah, the risk, the resilience thing, the
proactive, reactive things, Ithink have you ever talked to
your mom about that in terms oflike, when she was raising you
and you were gritty little11-year-old rolling his freaking
bike?
I mean, think about it.
That probably wouldn't happennow.
Maybe I mean where I live.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Child protection right yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
But it's funny, Hello son.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Where are you?
Where are you from?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
But parents can do it .
What did you do, officer?
I'm cycling away as fast as Ican All right, yeah, but we
wouldn't do that now.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Now, it doesn't mean it was right or wrong or one was
good or bad, but it was justthe time.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
It's just the time, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
So how do you think, have you ever talked to your mom
like how nervous were you, mom,when I was going off?
Or was just like no, I'm notnervous, he'll figure it out it
was.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
It was just what it was.
It was what it was.
It's not, uh, I don't think itwas a set of parenting choices.
Equally, as it's, it becomesthen not really a set of
parenting choices, although Ihave occasionally put my hand on
my wife's shoulder and said,hang on, because that's a dad's
job.
You know, the dad's job is tothrow the kids up way in the air
and probably catch them.
(26:42):
The dad's job is to give them anudge down the hill so they
roll.
The dad's job is to promote therisk and the mom's job is to
make sure that there's a cuddleat the end of the day, right,
and I think the thing that I'meternally grateful for is that
my mom played both parts andplayed them both extremely well,
(27:03):
extremely well.
She gave me the rough andtumble she gave me.
Now I do like musical theatre,you know, and I quite like the
arts and all that, but I'm alsofairly secure in my sexuality,
so that's also quite fine.
But you know, raised by a singlemother, you'd think that there
(27:24):
was a whole side of me withdaddy issues and stuff, and he
and I have had the occasionalconversation.
But eh what?
No, get on with it and that's,I think, the thing that we
inculcate in our children, isit's independence, resilience,
getting on with it.
We have not quite complaints,but you hear the tone of the
(27:46):
voice from the parents.
I saw your son in the store theother day.
Uh-huh, he was going shopping.
Oh right, well, okay then,because they would expect that
we'd be there holding his hand.
He said no, kid's got a card,he can go buy his own shit.
I'm not'm gonna walk with him.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I mean it's yeah, it's different it is different,
it's, you know, I remember.
I remember telling my kidsstories where I rode my bike.
No, no helmet, which would be?
Why would we wear a helmet backthen?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
it wasn't you know you wouldn't even bounce
yourself paving.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
That's fine, right, I mean, and I would literally go
down pipeline trails, acrossroads that were like no
stoplight, no crosswalk, likevery dangerous, but at the time
I was going to be fine, I wasn'tworried.
But like when I know and I'mraising my kids when they were
younger we were like completelynervous about stuff, trying to
avoid ER room trips and you know, and then it's like I thought
(28:43):
about for you guys over therebut like covid was a blessing in
many ways for us and it.
It was a blessing that it helpedme me, I'll tell me,
specifically me and my wife toowe were doing too much for our
kids and you know, covid waslike it, you know, shut
everything down and so we'relike, wait a minute, why am I
cooking you food?
No, no, you're going to do ityourself.
(29:05):
And it was actually through apodcast I interviewed and a guy
named Swen Nader and he wrote abook called you have Not Taught
Until they have Learned, andthat really kind of hit me and I
was like, oh, I'm that guy.
And so, thankfully, I kind ofmade the switch when they were
13, 14-ish, and now I got shortorder cooks it ish.
(29:25):
And now I got short order cooksit's the best, it's totally,
totally.
You know, they do everythingand I'm like they're doing their
own laundry.
He, they're doing.
I mean it's the best.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Hi, I'm Leslie Vickery, the CEO and founder of
ClearEdge, a company dedicatedto transforming the business of
talent.
Through our three lines ofbusiness ClearEdge, marketing,
recruiting Rising that helporganizations across the
recruitment and HR tech sectorsgrow their brands and market
share while building their teamswith excellence and equity.
(29:54):
I believe we were one ofCasey's very first clients.
He helped our sales and accountteams really those people on
the front lines of building anddeveloping client relationships
in so many ways.
Here are a few.
He helped us unlock the powerof curiosity.
For me it was a game changer.
I was personally learning allabout TED-based that's, tell,
(30:15):
explain, describe, questioningand that really resonated with
me.
We also learned about unlockingthe power of humility and
unlocking the power ofvulnerability.
Casey taught us to be a teamplayer, to embrace change, to
stay positive.
He is one of the most positivepeople I know.
He believes that optimism,resilience and a sense of humor
(30:38):
can go a long way in helpingpeople achieve their goals and
overcome obstacles.
And I agree Casey's book Win theRelationship, not the Deal.
It is a must read.
Listen.
Whether you're looking forcoaching and training or a
powerful speaker or keynote,casey is one of the people I
recommend when talking tocompanies.
(30:59):
The end result for us, at leastas one of Casey's clients our
own clients would literallycommend our approach over all
other companies, from the way wewere prepared in advance of a
call to how we drove meetings,to how we follow up.
It sounds really basic, I know,but let me tell you it is a
standout approach that led tostronger relationships.
(31:23):
I encourage you to learn moreby going to CaseyJCoxcom.
You have nothing to lose byhaving a conversation and a lot
to gain.
Now let's get back to Casey'spodcast, the quarterback dad
cast.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
So I don't know if that was.
If COVID, when you guys wentthrough, did your?
Did you see a change in yourkids as well during that time?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
um, I've ordinarily been dancing around the whole
covid thing because you don'treally know what people think or
what, don't want to offendanybody and then I stopped.
So if I'm offensive and I'msorry to anyone who's listening
you, casey, no, I think it was acrock of shit, I think it was a
crock of shit.
I think it was a crock of shit.
I think our governmentresponses to it were a crock of
(32:06):
shit.
I think the people who did thisto us deserve my forgiveness
and I forgive them and I canforgive them because I know of
divine retribution.
Yeah yeah, what they did to myfamily and to our nations and to
the children of this world wasdespicable on so many levels.
(32:30):
However, we managed to approachit from a point of view of
anger, which was not necessarilythe best, but it certainly
wasn't fear.
We were not afraid.
Afraid, okay, uh.
And our lack of fear wasevidenced in the fact that we
(32:51):
were less than obedient to thevarious rules and regulations
that were floating around.
We don't quite have a statute oflimitations and I've run for
public office and intend to doso again, so I'm not going to
come out and admit to anything,but we, we, we had, we had a
good time in covid, we were fine, we managed to because because
my wife's american we managed totravel to florida, which was
open and had a great time.
We're the only people in thedarn plane.
(33:13):
I flew on my birthday and got abottle of champagne from the
crew who thought it was a laugh.
They were.
They were flying fish acrossthe sea to to miami from london
and we were the only people inthe plane.
Um, we went to sweden a coupleof times, the, and we were the
only people on the plane.
We went to Sweden a couple oftimes, the kids and we had a
great time.
We bonded like crazy.
What happened, I think, duringCOVID was the realization that
(33:37):
it was a recalibration of thetrust that we had in our social
infrastructure and in ournational decision-making bodies
and realized that where theymight purport to be for our best
interests, the people who haveour best interests at heart are
(34:00):
us and we.
We need to make our owndecisions.
So we, we did so, and they werebetter and the outcomes were
better than the majority ofpeople around that.
We see.
We have so many friends who arevaccine injured, so many who
are really seriously vaccinated,obviously and they know it to
be the case they got the secondshot.
(34:22):
They get sick again, again,again, and they're still sick.
They have immune problems, theyhave skin problems.
They get sick again, again,again, and they're still sick.
They have immune problems, theyhave skin problems, they have
all this crap.
We never get any of them.
Um, but the bonding thathappened from that, the fact
that it was also a beautifulsummer over here, yeah, yeah,
god smiled on us.
He said, yeah, you're goingthrough this shit, but you know
(34:43):
what Nice weather and we had agreat time and I had been made
redundant.
So I had been made redundant inthe July.
Yeah, I knew it was coming inthe beginning of June because I
was in the exec team.
I knew what was happening.
I knew all the things that weremoving around.
(35:03):
I was thinking, oh crap, I needto find a new job under this
and then realized no, I don't,because they handed me the
biggest bucket of cash and toldme to leave and not let the door
hit my arse on the way out.
It did not hit my arse on theway out.
I was out of the place so fastand we had such a good time, so
we were together.
(35:24):
It was so hard because mydaughter was deeply depressed
because she's so social.
My son was tiny because he wasa lot younger he was like five
or six or whatever it was but wedid well.
We did well through that.
Actually, I'm grateful for it.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Me too.
Well, I'm glad you spoke upabout that.
I had no idea we're going totalk about that, but my wife had
a vaccine injury.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Yeah, I never, I, never I didn't even know vaccine
injury was.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
I didn't know that was a real thing.
And actually, yeah, uh, thiswould have been two years ago I
met a good buddy of mine he's abuddy now named Kip Stolkop and
his wife and my wife.
They met serendipitouslythrough my mom and her mom and
they both, to the day, almosthad the exact same symptoms.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
And if you've not been through it, you think well,
we're making this shit up LikeGod.
You know what I'm like.
Do you think I want to spend 35grand thousand dollars in the
hospital?
I think I want to go to the er.
Do you think my I want to havemy wife have a?
Um, just walking from thebedroom to the kitchen and have
her heart rate go from 80 to 130.
Do you think I want to have herfeet turn red, um, brain fog, um
(36:42):
random, almost like havingseizures, like you think we want
that, and there's just no,there's no accountability from
you know these, you know whoever.
I don't want to get toopolitical or going down the
wrong path, but I think it's.
I'm glad to say that becausethere are people that are still
struggling and very, verygrateful.
My wife is I think she'sprobably 90% back Good yeah, and
(37:04):
she can still exercise, but shestill has random flares that
make no sense when they happen.
And I think it's good thatwe're speaking up because I
think people still need a voiceout there and if they're a mom
or dad listening that, hey,you're not alone.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
No, no, it broke so many people.
You still see them.
I mean, you had a lot of.
The world is full of brokenpeople, but you still see people
who will wear masks on theunderground and all this sort of
stuff and you're thinking I'mso sorry, I'm so sorry for you
(37:37):
Really, because in their headthis thing is a thing.
It's still a thing for manypeople.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I love the dude that wears the mask in the car by
himself with gloves on yeah,he's having a condom at home in
bed, just in case you getpregnant.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
You know what?
Oh, I don't know anyway that'sright, okay.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Well, I want to go.
I want to, um, tell me the wellit's the switching gears.
I'm glad we spot, I'm glad wetalked about that because I
think it brings connection.
But I want to hear, um, yourbiggest gap as a dad that might
speak to another dad at home?
Mine's, mine has gotten a lotbetter, paul.
It's patience as a competitiveguy.
But tell me what's a gap isthat you have as a dad that
(38:20):
maybe might speak to another dadat home, cause I like asking
that question.
So so it realizes that nomatter what we do, whatever your
sales leadership, a bus driver,a janitor, we're all have the
same job.
It's it's to be the best dad wecan be.
And and there's ways we cankind of work together to kind of
talk about our gaps, but dosomething about it.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
And that's why I asked that question.
So your dad game that you'reworking hard to become better, I
think, in any leadership roleand this is a leadership role,
right?
Because if you want yourhousehold to be happier, be
happier.
You want your household to workharder, work harder.
You want your household to beon time, be on time.
You're the dad you lead.
Yeah, everything comes from youIn any leadership role.
Um, you hire to, if you'resmart, to fill in the gaps.
(39:08):
And I hired like I chose.
It was the cat that chose me.
I hired and my wife is aphenomenal and between the two
of us we make about 1.6 people.
Okay, we make 1.6, really,really well from people, Not two
, but 1.6.
And the extra 0.1 is actuallyher as well.
(39:31):
The gap I think I have is it'sprobably time, it's my attitude
to time.
I get in the flow when I'mdoing things and then I look up
and I've got three minutes to mycall.
It's okay, three minutes,that's fine.
I get back in the flow and Ilook up.
It's like six minutes past thecall and I do the same with and
(39:53):
it's so disrespectful, and Iknow it's so disrespectful and
I've tried so many differentthings, so many different ways.
I teach people time management,okay.
So time is a particular bugbear.
My wife calls it Paul time andunfortunately there's also my
(40:16):
son's time as well, so he's kindof got that too.
But we both just get into theflow and, yeah, I've seen, I see
it with him.
He gets into whatever he'sdoing when he's riding his bike
or whittling a piece of wood oryou know, picking his nose or
something like.
Yeah, he does whatever.
Whatever we're doing, we getinto, and that's it's a real
(40:37):
challenge.
And I know it's deeplydisrespectful and I don't mean
to disrespect, but I do and Ikeep on doing it and I've
actually started praying aboutit recently.
Um, in just just recently, andI mean like in the weeks ago, I
thought I need help with this.
(40:59):
Oh, hang on a minute.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
I know who can call.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
I got an idea here, so I am hopeful the Lord will
provide.
Who knows?
And I know how to persuadepeople to do things and not to
do things.
I know how to hack my own brain.
You decide to do something.
You choose to do something.
You don't try and do something.
I am not a person who is lateokay, I am a person who is on
time.
I'll let you know how it works,but that's a challenge for me.
(41:29):
That's a real challenge for me.
Um, that's a big old gap.
I work really, really hard andI've not much been late to pick
the kids up ever, really ever.
I've got the timing of thatdown.
I've got so many alerts on myphone.
It beeps and burps and farts atme all the bloody time saying
(41:50):
time to go.
I don't miss trains or planesor stuff like that.
I think, serendipitously, I'mone of the luckiest buggers I've
ever met.
The Lord is shining on me forsome reason.
I don't know why.
I certainly don't deserve it.
Um, it's my daughter says youare the person who will turn up
(42:14):
three minutes late to the trainand the train will be four
minutes late.
Yeah, it's kind of true, it is,it's a thing.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
I love that you.
I love that you said the wordserendipity serendipitously or
serendipitous.
Often this episode, paul, Iused to say it randomly happened
, but I am a big fan of the wordserendipity um so I love that
we've connected on that word.
Um.
If you were to describe um thethree most important lessons
(42:38):
that you will teach your kidsbefore they go off into doing
whatever they're going to do,tell me what comes to mind.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Three most important lessons.
I think they've learned a lotof them.
I think we can build orcontinue to build, because
they're both of an age 11 and 13.
They're both of an age where Ithink we've you know what kids
don't actually remember anythingreally until they're like eight
.
You get glimmers of stuff, butyou're like seven, eight, nine,
(43:06):
whatever it is years of life andlessons and education and
living and travel and all thisstuff.
What do you remember when youwere seven?
Oh, I had a red bike.
Okay, what else?
It was really fast, yeah, whatelse?
Yeah, not much, huh.
So all this foundational stuff,this is foundations that reach
(43:27):
the sky.
So by the time your, your kids,leap off of your foundations
into life, they're like the 34thfloor of this building you've
been building with them.
So I think these foundationsthat we've been putting in have
I, I think they've been takingum and again, it's not.
I would love to say it's, it'spurposeful.
I think it's, it's directed,but it's not necessarily
(43:50):
purposeful, it's just a nature.
It's a decision based on somevery, very simple guidelines,
and the biggest one was thatwe're not raising children.
That's not what our job is.
Our job is to raise adults.
Our job is to raiseself-sufficient parents of the
(44:12):
future, the mother and father ofour grandchildren.
That's where our job is toraise and I think, having had
that in mind, the resilience,the self-sufficiency, the all
that sort of stuff is part, ispart and parcel of it.
I think the the layers ofthings that we talk about.
(44:32):
We talk about having a strongfaith, having good fitness
habits, having um love of yourfamily, having good friends,
having a love of food, knowingthat your function in life all
these F's there your function isto stack all these different
(44:56):
talents that you have and bemeaningful and be useful and be
of service in the world, andthat if you have the desire to
make connection and to be ofservice, then you'll be happy.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah, Love it.
I love the answer, man.
How can people learn about you?
You're obviously a verywell-spoken guy.
You've obviously had a lot ofsuccess in business.
You're teaching leadership.
How can people, if they've beenintrigued by your story so far,
how can they learn about youand find you?
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Well, I've got a project that I'm working on
right now.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
I am all over LinkedIn.
If you want to look at LinkedIn, paul W Morton Paul Morton, you
can find me there.
Of course, I run a podcastcalled Leadership that Sells and
(45:50):
it's on all the usual suspectchannels.
But the thing I'm most keen onis a little project I'm working
on just now called Second Wind,and so secondwindlifecom.
Second Wind Life will be afabulous little podcast with
amazing thought leaders on allof those Fs that I mentioned.
So I want to talk to people whoare experts in each of those Fs
in turn, but actually get themto talk about the other parts as
well.
(46:10):
So I want to talk to I don'tknow Dave Ramsey on finance,
right, but talk to him about hisfaith and his family and his
friendships and the food helikes to eat and how he keeps
himself fit and what hisfunction is and all these
different things.
I want to talk to Dr SeymourHoltraut about fitness or health
or something like that, butalso understand.
(46:30):
That's what I want to do.
So that's my project.
I'm going to do that becausethe idea that you have a second
wind in life, I think is moremeaningful than people of our
age.
Let on, you get to 50-ish andyou think okay, now what?
Now what?
Well, you get a second wind,take a breath and realize that
(46:52):
you're no longer valuablebecause of the things you know
and know how to do, but you'revaluable as a conduit, by asking
good questions to makeconnections and to bring out
things that exist within otherpeople and to fill in the gaps.
So you're a conduit, so youmove, you reposition your
purpose and the value that youbring from being doing and
(47:15):
knowing to questioning bravely,directly and pushing people.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
I feel like you just spoke to my that's.
That's exactly what I'm whatI'm doing, brother that's the
thing, isn't it?
it's thousand per.
What you just said is I meanyou, without even knowing it.
I don't know if you knew it ornot, but but like I was a
corporate guy for 25 years, left, wrote a book, started a
podcast and then speaking anddoing leadership work and where
(47:43):
sales executives found me, Ididn't mean to do that and I'm
obsessed with the word curiosityand I teach leaders and
salespeople to ask betterquestions, not first level, but
second, third and fourth level.
So I'm proof that the secondwind is going to work.
So keep on doing it.
There's a lot of people outthere that need to get unlocked,
so I'm excited to see whathappens from this journey you're
(48:05):
going to be on.
Thank you.
Okay, Paul, it's now time to gointo what I call the lightning
round.
This is where I show you thenegative hits of taking too many
hits not bong hits, butfootball hits in America.
Your job is to answer thesequestions as quickly as possible
.
My job is to try to get agiggle out of you.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Go on.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Okay, are you ready?
Go Okay.
So, as a father of two swimmers, you like to wear a Speedo to
work.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Never tried, never going to try.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Okay, favorite musical artist is Prince.
Ooh, okay, amazing musician.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Ooh okay, amazing musician, Saw him live.
I mean played his guitar withhis actual teeth in the show.
I mean wow, Wow and it was good.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
What would be one musical genre that you love that
might surprise your clients youwork with?
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Thomas Tallis.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Who is that.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Go and listen to Thomas Tallis and one particular
piece called Spem in Allium.
It is a 40-part motet writtensomething like 600 years ago.
It will blow your mind.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Thomas Tallis.
Okay, I'm going to look it up.
If you and your wife are goingto go on vacation right now,
where are you going without thekids?
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Without the kids.
Oh, sweden, somewhere like that, croatia, I've heard.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Croatia's awesome Never been.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Last book you read is Last book side of my bed it was
an Isaac Asimov.
It was a collection of shortstories called I think it's
called someplace something likethis the rest of the short
stories Other one I like a lotof sci-fi takes you out of your
head was Arthur C Clarke theSands of Mars, written before we
knew what Mars looked like.
You can just wander around witha little face mask on and there
(49:53):
were little aliens.
It's really cool If there wasto be a book written about your
life, tell me the title, thetitle, uh, the title, the one
man band.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Okay, one man band.
Now, paul, you, you're nevergoing to believe it.
But Netflix found out aboutthis, uh, hulu found out about
this, hbo found out.
But now they're just fightingbecause they want to get the
one-man band into the theaters,into movie production.
They've hired you as thecasting director and I need to
know who's going to star PaulMorton.
It can't be you.
Who's going to star Paul Mortonin this critically acclaimed,
(50:29):
hit new movie.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Rutger Hauer.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
I was going to say Prince.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Rutger Hauer.
You know the one the say PrinceRutger Hauer, okay, right, you
know the one, the guy who was,yeah, rutger Hauer, yeah him, he
was in Blade Runner.
He was the first replicant thathe put the nails through his
hands.
Him, amazing actor.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
I like the grittiness and toughness.
Okay, and last and mostimportant question tell me two
words that would describe yourwife.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Describe my wife or my life Wife.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
My wife.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Ah, eloquent and elegant.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Oh, I love that.
I don't think we've had thosebefore, but those are beautiful
words that describe your wife,who I can tell you you have so
much respect for Lightninground's over.
We both kind of giggled alittle bit, paul, but I love, I
always love.
I'm so grateful to interviewpeople from different countries
and perspectives, and one I lovethe Scottish.
Scottish accent, I think it'swell done.
(51:26):
I think it's fantastic and I I'mexcited that our paths have
crossed.
I'm excited to followsecondwindlifecom and make sure
that's linked in the show notes.
Everybody, I'm going to makesure that the work you do is
linked in the show notes and, um, I've just had a really enjoyed
our conversation today.
I'm grateful for our timetogether and I wish you nothing
but the best in the future thankyou pleasure.
Hi, I'm Riley and I'm Ryder and this is my dad show.
Hey, everybody, it's CaseyJaycox with the quarterback dad
cast.
Welcome to season six, and Icould not be more excited to
have you join me for anotheryear of fantastic episodes and
conversations really unscriptedand raw and authentic
(00:24):
conversations with dads.
If you're new to this podcast,really it's simple.
It's a podcast where weinterview dads, we learn about
how they were raised, we learnabout the life lessons that were
important to them, we learnabout the values that are
important to them and really welearn about how we can work hard
to become a better quarterbackor leader of our home.
So let's sit back, relax andlisten to today's episode on the
Quarterback Dadcast.
(00:45):
Well, hey, everybody, it'sCasey Jaycox with the
Quarterback Dadcast.
We are in season six and thisnext guest I went across the
pond, everybody.
I went over to Edinburgh.
I wish I could say I'm going to, we're going to meet in St
(01:10):
Andrews or we're going to meetin Arnusty, but we're not.
We're going to meet in eachother's living rooms or bedrooms
or wherever the house is.
That's how we are.
But our next guest is PaulMorton.
He is really a sales andleadership and executive very,
very talented, very, verytalented man.
He runs a practical leadershipacademy, he's a podcast host,
he's the CEO of a VR trainingcompany, guy's got opera skills.
But that's not why we're havinghim on.
We're having him on because wewant to learn about Paul the dad
and how he's working hard tobecome that ultimate quarterback
or leader of his household.
So, without further ado, mrMorton, welcome to the
(01:31):
Quarterback Dadcast.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Casey, it's an absolute delight to be here.
Absolute delight, what anintroduction.
We're done, we're done.
You give me your bank details.
I'll just send you the money.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Perfect, perfect.
Well, we always start out eachepisode gratitude, so tell me,
what are you most grateful foras a dad today?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
oh uh god's love um and his uh peace and his
faithfulness through everythingum, and the fact that my
children know him as well, andfor my family around me and
having married an amazing woman.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Love it Amazing woman .
Most good marriages.
We marry up Paul.
We have kicked it.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
There's a great country song, fabulous country
song.
It says I'm just trying to keepmy daughter off the pole and my
sons out of jail.
And trying to keep my daughteroff the pole and my sons out of
jail, I'm trying to keep my wifefrom finding out that I married
up and she married way, waydown.
It's a great song.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Oh boy.
Well, what I'm grateful for.
I am in a different locationtoday, everybody.
We are in Eastern Washingtonand I'm grateful to spend time
this weekend with my son and hisgood buddy, and my daughter is
at home with her friends and sokind of everybody's doing their
own thing this weekend.
(02:57):
And it's because I have afreshman in college well, now, a
sophomore in college, whichseems weird to say, and then a
senior in high school to be andjust grateful for the time.
And every day when I do mygratitude journal work, the
first line I always say is God,thanks for waking me up today.
I get another day.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It's the start.
You know.
Sometimes you're thinking it'stough.
Okay, what am I actually doing?
We do this at the dinner aswell.
I mean, we give thanks and wesay well, what are you grateful
for today?
And sometimes the kids arenothing.
And sometimes they come out andsay broccoli or steak or
(03:35):
whatever it is.
But my wife is superb.
She says how about runningwater?
yeah, you know you get you there.
You always something you can,always something you start with.
And there's a guy that is apastor of my church.
He says something you know,sometimes you think about the
things you would really not wantto be taken away and you see,
uh, he's got a friend in awheelchair and he says, God,
(03:56):
thank you for my feet that work,you know.
Thank you for walking, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Waking up every day.
Waking up every day is a goodstart.
It's amazing and it's funny Iwas.
I tell a lot of my clients is,when I'm doing gratitude work in
the morning, I find myselfsubconsciously starting to smile
you can't help it yeah, andit's just getting your mind
right to start the day is soimportant that I wish other most
people would do it, but theydon't and it sets you.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I mean, I mean, you want to.
You want to work out in themorning as well.
That's great, You're.
What's your?
What's your 5am Ironman startto the day?
Well, it's two serious cups ofBrazilian coffee as well, but
it's, I think, having a smilefor the day and the start of the
day, knowing that it's it'slife and everything else that
(04:45):
comes after it is what it is youjust take it as you find it.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yep, Love it.
Well, bring me inside theMorton Huddle Talk about.
You know come from a sportstheme, so I played this position
called quarterback in anAmerica football team.
I always make fun of myself.
There's a great movie I'm notsure if you've heard about it
called Napoleon Dynamite.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I've heard of it.
I can't say.
I know the theme.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, so it's a really goofy American movie, but
there's a character named UncleRico and it's this uncle that
really is like living out of thehigh school dreams and he talks
about throwing the ball up inthe mountains.
So whenever I talk about mycollege football days, I got to
make fun of myself and callmyself Uncle Rico.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
But joking aside, let's go inside the huddle, tell
me about each member of theteam and what everybody's up to.
I think there's the four of us,but there's really the five,
and the five is the family unit,the unit as a whole, and it
gets stressed from time to time.
And it gets stressed from timeto time and it gets pulled from
pillar to post.
And I think, like any sort ofteam that you try to build in
(05:51):
life or in business, before youcan let it get stressed and deal
with all the stuff that getsthrown at you, you have to know
what's important and you have toknow that everybody else has
got your back and I would saythe very best teams I've ever
worked in have done exactly thatalmost serendipitously.
And again, the family I thinkis almost serendipitously I'd
(06:13):
like to say it's fatherhoodplanning here.
I know exactly what I'm doing.
I'm leading them forwardthrough the church.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
No, that's absolute bs it's.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I think it's as a result of who we, the unit, are.
So, each member in turn.
Well, we'll start with thegreatest and best, and that
would be my wonderful wife, andshe is a fellow of yours.
She's born in Missouri and shewas raised in New Jersey and
came over here looking for MrDarcy from Pride and Prejudice
and landed up with me.
A random Scots bloke from thesouth side of Glasgow, right, so
(06:48):
I am not Mr Darcy.
Mr Darcy would be the firstline of the book.
The Pride and Prejudice is alongthe lines of a man who has
10,000 a year must surely be inwant of a wife.
10,000 a year, 10,000 pounds ayear, something like 40 million
pounds these days.
Okay, so he was really well off.
No, sorry, honey, I'm doing mybest and not quite there yet,
(07:11):
give me time.
So she's magnificent.
Um, and when she's not drivingeveryone around, pillar to post,
taking us, taking everybodyeverywhere, there's the three,
three, three jobs of a parentright, taxi, short order, chef
and laundromat, oh, and theoccasional hug.
That's the three things.
So she keeps us coordinated.
(07:32):
She's a phenomenal projectmanager a phenomenal organizer
and so in touch with people.
She has a beautiful gift ofhaving a five minute
conversation with somebody andthen seeing them again six years
later and saying oh now yousaid your cousin's hamster had a
bit of a limp.
(07:53):
How the heck does she rememberthis stuff?
She connects with people insuch a level.
This is a beautiful gift.
She also looks after us, keepsus, keeps us very, very healthy.
She's a great cook, um, a veryprofessional woman, but she's a
great cook.
She loves, uh, finding herbsand spices and things in the
(08:14):
wilderness and pulling themtogether and making us all sorts
of concoctions.
That keeps us healthy and wise.
And she's introduced my sonwell, so they introduce each
other to foraging.
So they go in, they all findmushrooms and they um, pull
things off, little berries andplants and flowers together and
make tinctures and all sorts ofweird and wonderful things.
It's just phenomenal.
(08:34):
And then we'll go from the bestto the the shortest for the
moment, which is only very, veryjust the shortest and that
would be my son, and he, he's 11and is the philosopher king, so
he's a very wise young man, butalso likes doing wheelies on
his bike, so he's a very smart,smart, smart kid.
(08:55):
They're all fairly sporty.
He's a good swimmer.
He likes, likes his swimming,as does my daughter as well.
Um, and he's very creative,very inventive.
Um, one word for me, and he'soften pretty much the opposite
(09:15):
thing, but he's a good lad.
Um, my daughter is a specialcharacter.
She's, she's 13, going on 17.
And we do the best, I do mybest, to keep it to the 13, but
she does her best to keep it tothe 17.
Most of our communications areDad, can I have more screen time
?
No, no, no, you can't Bless her.
(09:39):
She doesn't complain too much.
She's a club they're both clubswimmers, but she's a superb
club swimmer club.
They're both club swimmers, butshe's a superb club swimmer.
She's got some really, reallygood times.
She's swum for our county aswell, which is a nice thing, and
here the counties are like thestates.
So Hampshire County, where welive, is about two and a half
million people, so she's swum inthe county for that and is a
(10:00):
great athlete.
She's been invited to go for thecounty athletics tournament in
a couple of weeks' time, gettingclose to the end of term, here
to do the shot putt.
Yes, indeed, the shot puttbecause she's got shoulders,
because she does fly.
You know I've got a magnificentpicture of my wall up here of
her doing fly.
She's got the arms like aneagle.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
It's amazing, it's a wonderful thing.
So, yes, and it's amazing, it'sa wonderful thing, so yes.
And then the unit comestogether and we eat dinner
together, if not every night,then 99%, and we have our Sunday
lunch together 99% of the time,and we spend a lot of good hugs
(10:45):
, we have a lot of good.
We have our challenges, forsure, but I think the unit is
it's not one one.
One one equals four.
It's one plus one plus oneequals 643.
So, as a unit, I think we'restrong.
We're strong.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Now were you or your wife swimmers?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
My wife became one.
She did some swimming in herearly 20s but she taught me how
to swim.
I could swim.
In fact, my kids say, no, dad,you know how not to drown.
Which was true, I know how notto drown, but she taught me
properly how to actually breatheand all that sort of stuff.
So I'm late to the game.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Okay, I always like now taking a little pivot here.
Paul and I want to go back intime and I want to learn about
what was life like for Paulgrowing up, and I want to learn
about the impact Paul's mom anddad had on him and maybe tell us
a story or two on the valuesthat were taught to you and
instilled in you early.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Hmm, my parents divorced when I was three, which
in 1979 or thereabouts was athing.
Okay, so a single parent, mymother.
I was raised by her and she didher very best and did a
phenomenal job.
I got to know my father againas an adult.
I came down after university.
(12:08):
We stayed vaguely in touch andI met, we came to, I got got
together a few times but westayed vaguely in touch.
And I met him again as an adultwhen I came down for a job
interview in london, havinglived in scotland and kind of.
We picked up a relationshipthere.
But it really blossomed when I12, 13, whatever it was years
later introduced him to my wife.
(12:28):
So he came to our wedding andhe's turned out to be a really
good granddad, mostly because Ithink his wife, his new wife of
40 odd years, is a phenomenalwoman.
So she's Nanny Fran.
So she's a phenomenal woman and, without children of their own,
have absolutely adopted anddoted on ours and they're the
(12:49):
closest people to us physically.
My mother is what?
Seven hours by train or three,400 miles away, and my dad's 90
miles away and about an hour anda half, two hours by car.
So it's a lot closer.
So we still see my mum moreoften because she actually puts
her back into it and makes itmakes a journey down from
scotland every six weeks, soshe's down here for a good long
(13:10):
weekend, which is wonderful, andI've seen more of her, uh,
since the kids were born than Ihad.
I've seen her through my adultlife.
You know, you've seen thatgraph where you know you, your
contact time with your childrenis incredibly high and then it
just drops like an absolutebrick until you get old and it
picks up again when they can'tstart to pay attention to you
(13:31):
because you're frail.
Well, thankfully we've actuallyforeshortened that slightly
because of her effort in comingdown and seeing us so very often
.
So as a little boy we moved.
The story comes that I came homefrom the streets of Glasgow one
day in the late 1970s, whichwas a bit of a rough place, and
(13:55):
gave my mother a mouth full ofGlasgow street parlance, so to
speak, effing and blinding ather, to which my um, not
puritanical but quitestraight-laced mother said oh, I
think it's time to move out ofthe big city to which we moved,
to the middle of nowhere, infact, the terminology I would
(14:15):
use would be the back arse ofbeyond.
In fact, you get to the middleof nowhere.
You turn left, you keep drivingfor another 100 miles and you
get to the back arse of beyond.
It's really in the middle ofnowhere, a tiny place called the
Bridge of Orchie which, ifanybody wants to look it up on a
map, is in the highlands ofScotland and it's on a train
(14:37):
line.
Far, far north there was asingle teacher school.
She was a teacher, so shetaught there.
She was teaching in inner cityGlasgow and then went from a big
school with hundreds andhundreds of kids to eight kids,
so eight kids, one head teacher.
She was a head teacherimmediately.
Aha, very clever.
And I had a mountain as my backgarden.
(14:58):
I had a loch as a swimming poolNot that you would swim in it,
because it was seven degrees allyear round it's cold up there
but it was a phenomenal place togrow up.
And we moved from there to theWest Coast, the far far West.
Have you ever seen a map ofScotland?
There's a little leg thatsticks out in the left on the
West Coast, pointing downtowards Ireland, the island of
(15:20):
Ireland, and that's a thingcalled kentire, and right down
the bottom of that again the,the buttocks of this island.
There's this pokey archipelagostick.
Uh is right next to an americanair force base.
Mackinac air force base iswhere they had all the nuclear
bombers.
So we had no problems.
Cold war, millisecond ofblinding light vapor.
(15:41):
So we were right the way downthere for several years and then
came back to the borders, therolling hills of Scotland again.
So I was blessed by lots andlots of wildlife, lots of
wilderness, lots of outdoorsness, and I think the overarching
(16:02):
thing I took away from that wasmake friends, connect, be able
to connect with people and bevery comfortable in your own
skin, because you're gonna havea long time and it's all you've
got.
It's only when you'll be ableto rely on.
So I don't have friends from myand I have acquaintances from
my early childhood.
Really ish, but not really.
I make friends relativelyeasily and I'm very comfortable
(16:28):
in my own skin, very happy on myown.
But I'm equally relativelygregarious.
I think I'm probably borderlineintroverted, but I'm quite
happy doing the outside stuff aswell.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
So what, um?
How was it?
Was the?
Was the divorce difficult onyou growing up?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Didn't know, didn't notice.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
No idea.
Three years old.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah, it was just normal, it was just.
Isn't everybody like that?
And then eventually you get,you get to work it out, you work
it out.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Did your mom ever remarry?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
No, she uh said her, her, her shtick was uh, the
first one didn't take, I'm notdoing it again.
And she was very conscious andvery cautious and very sensible
about not introducing any othermen into her, into my life
really so I know she dated, shehad friends and all this sort of
stuff.
But she met a wonderful man whenI was about 14 but didn't move
(17:28):
in with him until I moved out.
So I went off to universitywhen I was 18 and when I was 19
she had sold the house and movedin with him and they had 30
wonderful years together untilhe died a few years ago.
So but she she's no other's anamazing woman.
In fact, she is the 100thepisode of my own podcast,
(17:50):
leadership that Sells.
So if you want to listen to meinterviewing my mom, who was the
consummate, extra dependentleader because she was leading a
team of teachers, and teacherswork very similarly to
salespeople they don't worktogether, but they work towards
their own individual goal.
So she's a great leader forthem.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Wow, what were the values that mom taught you, that
really really stood out to you,that maybe you've shared with
your son or your daughter, sure.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I would love to say faith, but that's not true.
She was always a strong and hasforever been a strong Christian
.
But she let me find my own path, and I think that's possibly.
I think that's probably it.
Find your own path, be happy,but know what happiness is.
It's not clappy happy joy.
(18:47):
Joy, it's contentment, it's, itis joy.
It's uh, joy.
In the morning it is, it's,it's the sunrise, it's that,
it's happiness.
And whenever I would ask mom,what do you want me to be when I
grow up, she wouldn't say adoctor or an engineer or
whatever.
It was because I, because I wasa smart kid, I was a smarty
(19:07):
pants, you know all that sort ofstuff, but she would say happy,
that's no use.
That's no use Be useful.
But it was, I think, to meetthe world as you find it, treat
the world.
Yeah, I think I said meet theworld as you find it, treat the
(19:28):
world.
Yeah, I think that's it.
Meet the world as you find itand then chart your own path
towards whatever happiness meansfor you.
I think that's.
I've never actually thoughtabout that question before.
Can you believe it?
It's something I would askpeople, but I've never really
thought it through.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, I think that's it okay when you, when you, when
you think about find your path,or let let she, let you find
your own path.
Um, that can be hard for forparents at least I don't bet in
the states.
Sometimes, like in the unitedstates, we get I don't know if
it's like this in Europe, butyou know it's you get so wrapped
up into the sport or theactivity and you want to, like,
(20:11):
help them be their best scene.
But kids got to fail,unfortunately, and that's where
we get the adversity and gritand resilience and life that
they're going to need later downthe path.
So was there any moments ofstruggle or failure for you that
you reflect on?
Now that you are like a youknow sales leadership guy in
business and a dad that maybeyour mom, let you just kind of
(20:32):
struggle through.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Do you want them alphabetically, numerologically
or chronologically?
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Maybe just give me a favorite one that maybe you've
shared with your kids.
That kind of just keepseverybody grounded.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Failure.
My goodness, I think it's allabout the context, isn't it?
It's like the stories of thekid going off to learn to ride
their bike and he falls off, andthe parent turns to the
neighbor and says oh yeah, he'sa bit of a faller.
You know?
No, he's a learner.
(21:04):
This is what he's a bit of afaller, you know, it's?
No, it's he's.
He's a learner, he's this iswhat he's doing.
Um, so I think it's whether,whether, whether I'm losing the
power of speech here whether itwas quite literally learning to
ride a bike on a side of amountain, which is harder than I
think you think.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Um, and as a second hand thing as well, because we
never had any money you know,single parent, teaching job,
public sector in Scotland in theearly eighties not well paid to
realizing that you can be assmart as you like, but if you
don't actually have the socialskills to back it up, you're in
(21:41):
a lot of trouble and learning tokeep your mouth shut.
That's a big one, I think.
Dealing with people, learningto deal with people.
And she pushed me out to go toscouts or to judo or to my
tennis or whatever it was, and Iwas put on the bike and said
(22:03):
it's over there, we'll go, I'lldrive you there, but you need to
remember where it is becauseyou're cycling there tomorrow.
Okay, wow.
All right, three miles in thedark in Scotland with no
streetlights.
This is what you do, okay, andnobody's walking you in.
(22:23):
Nobody ever did that.
Parents didn't walk you in andsit with you.
It's like go on, get on with it, go.
It's kind of a different styleof parenting than we have, I
think.
But, as you said, theresilience of just getting out
and getting on and you fall overand skin your knee.
(22:43):
You're two miles from anywhere.
What are you going to do?
Sit there and wait for someoneto pick you up?
Oh, okay, you'll be waiting fora while, you just have to get
on with it.
And it is excruciatinglydifficult to do that with my own
children, but I think we'vebeen very good at it to the
(23:03):
extent where either of them I'veseen it, I've seen them both
multiple times come in coveredin blood, covered in blood, and
you're thinking, oh, my goodness, what's going on?
And they're just going.
Oh, yeah, I've done this.
You're thinking, oh, okay, theyjust wash it off, do whatever
it is.
Oh, I've got blood everywhere.
(23:24):
They just wash it off, dowhatever it is.
I'm going back outside, alright.
Then they just bounce and yousee, I know everybody thinks
their kids are special.
I know my kids are specialbecause I'm different, right, of
course you see in comparisonother other results of parenting
not the kids, but other resultsof parenting not the kids, but
(23:45):
it's other results of parenting.
Okay, um ppp, we call it piss,poor parenting.
Other results of parenting withother children out there and
they buy it, they fall overwhatever it is and it's a scream
and the parent then destroys itby running forwards and going
oh no, it's a disaster.
It's not a disaster, it'spainful.
The kids needs help.
But if you don't let them fail,get hurt, break a leg, then then
(24:14):
what is life gonna gonna gonna,how's like?
How are they gonna deal withlife?
Because when they meet theuniverse as a whole, it's a
rough old place.
Bones will still break.
You know it's a rough old placeand you've got to get on with
it.
And I think then that lack ofresilience translates, which is
(24:36):
the response to something,translates equally into a lack
of courage in the attack forsomething.
So you've got the proactive andthe reactive, and if your
reactive nature is to panic andlook for help or whatever it is,
then that feeds your proactivenature and it stops you seeking
(24:58):
it, stops you managing it, stopsyou going through towards risk,
because your nature is one ofcaution and cotton wool.
So, if you are not, you don'thave the, the JFDI, which is
just flaming.
Well, do it then, for what youcan do, life, because as soon as
(25:21):
you start meeting the rest ofhumanity, the rest of humanity
is not out for themselves but,yeah, out for themselves.
They're not going to spoon feedyou anything.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
So, yeah, the risk, the resilience thing, the
proactive, reactive things, Ithink have you ever talked to
your mom about that in terms oflike, when she was raising you
and you were gritty little11-year-old rolling his freaking
bike?
I mean, think about it.
That probably wouldn't happennow.
Maybe I mean where I live.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Child protection right yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
But it's funny, Hello son.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Where are you?
Where are you from?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
But parents can do it .
What did you do, officer?
I'm cycling away as fast as Ican All right, yeah, but we
wouldn't do that now.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Now, it doesn't mean it was right or wrong or one was
good or bad, but it was justthe time.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
It's just the time, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
So how do you think, have you ever talked to your mom
like how nervous were you, mom,when I was going off?
Or was just like no, I'm notnervous, he'll figure it out it
was.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
It was just what it was.
It was what it was.
It's not, uh, I don't think itwas a set of parenting choices.
Equally, as it's, it becomesthen not really a set of
parenting choices, although Ihave occasionally put my hand on
my wife's shoulder and said,hang on, because that's a dad's
job.
You know, the dad's job is tothrow the kids up way in the air
and probably catch them.
(26:42):
The dad's job is to give them anudge down the hill so they
roll.
The dad's job is to promote therisk and the mom's job is to
make sure that there's a cuddleat the end of the day, right,
and I think the thing that I'meternally grateful for is that
my mom played both parts andplayed them both extremely well,
(27:03):
extremely well.
She gave me the rough andtumble she gave me.
Now I do like musical theatre,you know, and I quite like the
arts and all that, but I'm alsofairly secure in my sexuality,
so that's also quite fine.
But you know, raised by a singlemother, you'd think that there
(27:24):
was a whole side of me withdaddy issues and stuff, and he
and I have had the occasionalconversation.
But eh what?
No, get on with it and that's,I think, the thing that we
inculcate in our children, isit's independence, resilience,
getting on with it.
We have not quite complaints,but you hear the tone of the
(27:46):
voice from the parents.
I saw your son in the store theother day.
Uh-huh, he was going shopping.
Oh right, well, okay then,because they would expect that
we'd be there holding his hand.
He said no, kid's got a card,he can go buy his own shit.
I'm not'm gonna walk with him.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I mean it's yeah, it's different it is different,
it's, you know, I remember.
I remember telling my kidsstories where I rode my bike.
No, no helmet, which would be?
Why would we wear a helmet backthen?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
it wasn't you know you wouldn't even bounce
yourself paving.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
That's fine, right, I mean, and I would literally go
down pipeline trails, acrossroads that were like no
stoplight, no crosswalk, likevery dangerous, but at the time
I was going to be fine, I wasn'tworried.
But like when I know and I'mraising my kids when they were
younger we were like completelynervous about stuff, trying to
avoid ER room trips and you know, and then it's like I thought
(28:43):
about for you guys over therebut like covid was a blessing in
many ways for us and it.
It was a blessing that it helpedme me, I'll tell me,
specifically me and my wife toowe were doing too much for our
kids and you know, covid waslike it, you know, shut
everything down and so we'relike, wait a minute, why am I
cooking you food?
No, no, you're going to do ityourself.
(29:05):
And it was actually through apodcast I interviewed and a guy
named Swen Nader and he wrote abook called you have Not Taught
Until they have Learned, andthat really kind of hit me and I
was like, oh, I'm that guy.
And so, thankfully, I kind ofmade the switch when they were
13, 14-ish, and now I got shortorder cooks it ish.
(29:25):
And now I got short order cooksit's the best, it's totally,
totally.
You know, they do everythingand I'm like they're doing their
own laundry.
He, they're doing.
I mean it's the best.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Hi, I'm Leslie Vickery, the CEO and founder of
ClearEdge, a company dedicatedto transforming the business of
talent.
Through our three lines ofbusiness ClearEdge, marketing,
recruiting Rising that helporganizations across the
recruitment and HR tech sectorsgrow their brands and market
share while building their teamswith excellence and equity.
(29:54):
I believe we were one ofCasey's very first clients.
He helped our sales and accountteams really those people on
the front lines of building anddeveloping client relationships
in so many ways.
Here are a few.
He helped us unlock the powerof curiosity.
For me it was a game changer.
I was personally learning allabout TED-based that's, tell,
(30:15):
explain, describe, questioningand that really resonated with
me.
We also learned about unlockingthe power of humility and
unlocking the power ofvulnerability.
Casey taught us to be a teamplayer, to embrace change, to
stay positive.
He is one of the most positivepeople I know.
He believes that optimism,resilience and a sense of humor
(30:38):
can go a long way in helpingpeople achieve their goals and
overcome obstacles.
And I agree Casey's book Win theRelationship, not the Deal.
It is a must read.
Listen.
Whether you're looking forcoaching and training or a
powerful speaker or keynote,casey is one of the people I
recommend when talking tocompanies.
(30:59):
The end result for us, at leastas one of Casey's clients our
own clients would literallycommend our approach over all
other companies, from the way wewere prepared in advance of a
call to how we drove meetings,to how we follow up.
It sounds really basic, I know,but let me tell you it is a
standout approach that led tostronger relationships.
(31:23):
I encourage you to learn moreby going to CaseyJCoxcom.
You have nothing to lose byhaving a conversation and a lot
to gain.
Now let's get back to Casey'spodcast, the quarterback dad
cast.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
So I don't know if that was.
If COVID, when you guys wentthrough, did your?
Did you see a change in yourkids as well during that time?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
um, I've ordinarily been dancing around the whole
covid thing because you don'treally know what people think or
what, don't want to offendanybody and then I stopped.
So if I'm offensive and I'msorry to anyone who's listening
you, casey, no, I think it was acrock of shit, I think it was a
crock of shit.
I think it was a crock of shit.
I think our governmentresponses to it were a crock of
(32:06):
shit.
I think the people who did thisto us deserve my forgiveness
and I forgive them and I canforgive them because I know of
divine retribution.
Yeah yeah, what they did to myfamily and to our nations and to
the children of this world wasdespicable on so many levels.
(32:30):
However, we managed to approachit from a point of view of
anger, which was not necessarilythe best, but it certainly
wasn't fear.
We were not afraid.
Afraid, okay, uh.
And our lack of fear wasevidenced in the fact that we
(32:51):
were less than obedient to thevarious rules and regulations
that were floating around.
We don't quite have a statute oflimitations and I've run for
public office and intend to doso again, so I'm not going to
come out and admit to anything,but we, we, we had, we had a
good time in covid, we were fine, we managed to because because
my wife's american we managed totravel to florida, which was
open and had a great time.
We're the only people in thedarn plane.
(33:13):
I flew on my birthday and got abottle of champagne from the
crew who thought it was a laugh.
They were.
They were flying fish acrossthe sea to to miami from london
and we were the only people inthe plane.
Um, we went to sweden a coupleof times, the, and we were the
only people on the plane.
We went to Sweden a couple oftimes, the kids and we had a
great time.
We bonded like crazy.
What happened, I think, duringCOVID was the realization that
(33:37):
it was a recalibration of thetrust that we had in our social
infrastructure and in ournational decision-making bodies
and realized that where theymight purport to be for our best
interests, the people who haveour best interests at heart are
(34:00):
us and we.
We need to make our owndecisions.
So we, we did so, and they werebetter and the outcomes were
better than the majority ofpeople around that.
We see.
We have so many friends who arevaccine injured, so many who
are really seriously vaccinated,obviously and they know it to
be the case they got the secondshot.
(34:22):
They get sick again, again,again, and they're still sick.
They have immune problems, theyhave skin problems.
They get sick again, again,again, and they're still sick.
They have immune problems, theyhave skin problems, they have
all this crap.
We never get any of them.
Um, but the bonding thathappened from that, the fact
that it was also a beautifulsummer over here, yeah, yeah,
god smiled on us.
He said, yeah, you're goingthrough this shit, but you know
(34:43):
what Nice weather and we had agreat time and I had been made
redundant.
So I had been made redundant inthe July.
Yeah, I knew it was coming inthe beginning of June because I
was in the exec team.
I knew what was happening.
I knew all the things that weremoving around.
(35:03):
I was thinking, oh crap, I needto find a new job under this
and then realized no, I don't,because they handed me the
biggest bucket of cash and toldme to leave and not let the door
hit my arse on the way out.
It did not hit my arse on theway out.
I was out of the place so fastand we had such a good time, so
we were together.
(35:24):
It was so hard because mydaughter was deeply depressed
because she's so social.
My son was tiny because he wasa lot younger he was like five
or six or whatever it was but wedid well.
We did well through that.
Actually, I'm grateful for it.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Me too.
Well, I'm glad you spoke upabout that.
I had no idea we're going totalk about that, but my wife had
a vaccine injury.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Yeah, I never, I, never I didn't even know vaccine
injury was.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
I didn't know that was a real thing.
And actually, yeah, uh, thiswould have been two years ago I
met a good buddy of mine he's abuddy now named Kip Stolkop and
his wife and my wife.
They met serendipitouslythrough my mom and her mom and
they both, to the day, almosthad the exact same symptoms.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
And if you've not been through it, you think well,
we're making this shit up LikeGod.
You know what I'm like.
Do you think I want to spend 35grand thousand dollars in the
hospital?
I think I want to go to the er.
Do you think my I want to havemy wife have a?
Um, just walking from thebedroom to the kitchen and have
her heart rate go from 80 to 130.
Do you think I want to have herfeet turn red, um, brain fog, um
(36:42):
random, almost like havingseizures, like you think we want
that, and there's just no,there's no accountability from
you know these, you know whoever.
I don't want to get toopolitical or going down the
wrong path, but I think it's.
I'm glad to say that becausethere are people that are still
struggling and very, verygrateful.
My wife is I think she'sprobably 90% back Good yeah, and
(37:04):
she can still exercise, but shestill has random flares that
make no sense when they happen.
And I think it's good thatwe're speaking up because I
think people still need a voiceout there and if they're a mom
or dad listening that, hey,you're not alone.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
No, no, it broke so many people.
You still see them.
I mean, you had a lot of.
The world is full of brokenpeople, but you still see people
who will wear masks on theunderground and all this sort of
stuff and you're thinking I'mso sorry, I'm so sorry for you
(37:37):
Really, because in their headthis thing is a thing.
It's still a thing for manypeople.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I love the dude that wears the mask in the car by
himself with gloves on yeah,he's having a condom at home in
bed, just in case you getpregnant.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
You know what?
Oh, I don't know anyway that'sright, okay.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Well, I want to go.
I want to, um, tell me the wellit's the switching gears.
I'm glad we spot, I'm glad wetalked about that because I
think it brings connection.
But I want to hear, um, yourbiggest gap as a dad that might
speak to another dad at home?
Mine's, mine has gotten a lotbetter, paul.
It's patience as a competitiveguy.
But tell me what's a gap isthat you have as a dad that
(38:20):
maybe might speak to another dadat home, cause I like asking
that question.
So so it realizes that nomatter what we do, whatever your
sales leadership, a bus driver,a janitor, we're all have the
same job.
It's it's to be the best dad wecan be.
And and there's ways we cankind of work together to kind of
talk about our gaps, but dosomething about it.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
And that's why I asked that question.
So your dad game that you'reworking hard to become better, I
think, in any leadership roleand this is a leadership role,
right?
Because if you want yourhousehold to be happier, be
happier.
You want your household to workharder, work harder.
You want your household to beon time, be on time.
You're the dad you lead.
Yeah, everything comes from youIn any leadership role.
Um, you hire to, if you'resmart, to fill in the gaps.
(39:08):
And I hired like I chose.
It was the cat that chose me.
I hired and my wife is aphenomenal and between the two
of us we make about 1.6 people.
Okay, we make 1.6, really,really well from people, Not two
, but 1.6.
And the extra 0.1 is actuallyher as well.
(39:31):
The gap I think I have is it'sprobably time, it's my attitude
to time.
I get in the flow when I'mdoing things and then I look up
and I've got three minutes to mycall.
It's okay, three minutes,that's fine.
I get back in the flow and Ilook up.
It's like six minutes past thecall and I do the same with and
(39:53):
it's so disrespectful, and Iknow it's so disrespectful and
I've tried so many differentthings, so many different ways.
I teach people time management,okay.
So time is a particular bugbear.
My wife calls it Paul time andunfortunately there's also my
(40:16):
son's time as well, so he's kindof got that too.
But we both just get into theflow and, yeah, I've seen, I see
it with him.
He gets into whatever he'sdoing when he's riding his bike
or whittling a piece of wood oryou know, picking his nose or
something like.
Yeah, he does whatever.
Whatever we're doing, we getinto, and that's it's a real
(40:37):
challenge.
And I know it's deeplydisrespectful and I don't mean
to disrespect, but I do and Ikeep on doing it and I've
actually started praying aboutit recently.
Um, in just just recently, andI mean like in the weeks ago, I
thought I need help with this.
(40:59):
Oh, hang on a minute.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
I know who can call.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
I got an idea here, so I am hopeful the Lord will
provide.
Who knows?
And I know how to persuadepeople to do things and not to
do things.
I know how to hack my own brain.
You decide to do something.
You choose to do something.
You don't try and do something.
I am not a person who is lateokay, I am a person who is on
time.
I'll let you know how it works,but that's a challenge for me.
(41:29):
That's a real challenge for me.
Um, that's a big old gap.
I work really, really hard andI've not much been late to pick
the kids up ever, really ever.
I've got the timing of thatdown.
I've got so many alerts on myphone.
It beeps and burps and farts atme all the bloody time saying
(41:50):
time to go.
I don't miss trains or planesor stuff like that.
I think, serendipitously, I'mone of the luckiest buggers I've
ever met.
The Lord is shining on me forsome reason.
I don't know why.
I certainly don't deserve it.
Um, it's my daughter says youare the person who will turn up
(42:14):
three minutes late to the trainand the train will be four
minutes late.
Yeah, it's kind of true, it is,it's a thing.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
I love that you.
I love that you said the wordserendipity serendipitously or
serendipitous.
Often this episode, paul, Iused to say it randomly happened
, but I am a big fan of the wordserendipity um so I love that
we've connected on that word.
Um.
If you were to describe um thethree most important lessons
(42:38):
that you will teach your kidsbefore they go off into doing
whatever they're going to do,tell me what comes to mind.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Three most important lessons.
I think they've learned a lotof them.
I think we can build orcontinue to build, because
they're both of an age 11 and 13.
They're both of an age where Ithink we've you know what kids
don't actually remember anythingreally until they're like eight
.
You get glimmers of stuff, butyou're like seven, eight, nine,
(43:06):
whatever it is years of life andlessons and education and
living and travel and all thisstuff.
What do you remember when youwere seven?
Oh, I had a red bike.
Okay, what else?
It was really fast, yeah, whatelse?
Yeah, not much, huh.
So all this foundational stuff,this is foundations that reach
(43:27):
the sky.
So by the time your, your kids,leap off of your foundations
into life, they're like the 34thfloor of this building you've
been building with them.
So I think these foundationsthat we've been putting in have
I, I think they've been takingum and again, it's not.
I would love to say it's, it'spurposeful.
I think it's, it's directed,but it's not necessarily
(43:50):
purposeful, it's just a nature.
It's a decision based on somevery, very simple guidelines,
and the biggest one was thatwe're not raising children.
That's not what our job is.
Our job is to raise adults.
Our job is to raiseself-sufficient parents of the
(44:12):
future, the mother and father ofour grandchildren.
That's where our job is toraise and I think, having had
that in mind, the resilience,the self-sufficiency, the all
that sort of stuff is part, ispart and parcel of it.
I think the the layers ofthings that we talk about.
(44:32):
We talk about having a strongfaith, having good fitness
habits, having um love of yourfamily, having good friends,
having a love of food, knowingthat your function in life all
these F's there your function isto stack all these different
(44:56):
talents that you have and bemeaningful and be useful and be
of service in the world, andthat if you have the desire to
make connection and to be ofservice, then you'll be happy.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah, Love it.
I love the answer, man.
How can people learn about you?
You're obviously a verywell-spoken guy.
You've obviously had a lot ofsuccess in business.
You're teaching leadership.
How can people, if they've beenintrigued by your story so far,
how can they learn about youand find you?
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Well, I've got a project that I'm working on
right now.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
I am all over LinkedIn.
If you want to look at LinkedIn, paul W Morton Paul Morton, you
can find me there.
Of course, I run a podcastcalled Leadership that Sells and
(45:50):
it's on all the usual suspectchannels.
But the thing I'm most keen onis a little project I'm working
on just now called Second Wind,and so secondwindlifecom.
Second Wind Life will be afabulous little podcast with
amazing thought leaders on allof those Fs that I mentioned.
So I want to talk to people whoare experts in each of those Fs
in turn, but actually get themto talk about the other parts as
well.
(46:10):
So I want to talk to I don'tknow Dave Ramsey on finance,
right, but talk to him about hisfaith and his family and his
friendships and the food helikes to eat and how he keeps
himself fit and what hisfunction is and all these
different things.
I want to talk to Dr SeymourHoltraut about fitness or health
or something like that, butalso understand.
(46:30):
That's what I want to do.
So that's my project.
I'm going to do that becausethe idea that you have a second
wind in life, I think is moremeaningful than people of our
age.
Let on, you get to 50-ish andyou think okay, now what?
Now what?
Well, you get a second wind,take a breath and realize that
(46:52):
you're no longer valuablebecause of the things you know
and know how to do, but you'revaluable as a conduit, by asking
good questions to makeconnections and to bring out
things that exist within otherpeople and to fill in the gaps.
So you're a conduit, so youmove, you reposition your
purpose and the value that youbring from being doing and
(47:15):
knowing to questioning bravely,directly and pushing people.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
I feel like you just spoke to my that's.
That's exactly what I'm whatI'm doing, brother that's the
thing, isn't it?
it's thousand per.
What you just said is I meanyou, without even knowing it.
I don't know if you knew it ornot, but but like I was a
corporate guy for 25 years, left, wrote a book, started a
podcast and then speaking anddoing leadership work and where
(47:43):
sales executives found me, Ididn't mean to do that and I'm
obsessed with the word curiosityand I teach leaders and
salespeople to ask betterquestions, not first level, but
second, third and fourth level.
So I'm proof that the secondwind is going to work.
So keep on doing it.
There's a lot of people outthere that need to get unlocked,
so I'm excited to see whathappens from this journey you're
(48:05):
going to be on.
Thank you.
Okay, Paul, it's now time to gointo what I call the lightning
round.
This is where I show you thenegative hits of taking too many
hits not bong hits, butfootball hits in America.
Your job is to answer thesequestions as quickly as possible
.
My job is to try to get agiggle out of you.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Go on.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Okay, are you ready?
Go Okay.
So, as a father of two swimmers, you like to wear a Speedo to
work.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Never tried, never going to try.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Okay, favorite musical artist is Prince.
Ooh, okay, amazing musician.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Ooh okay, amazing musician, Saw him live.
I mean played his guitar withhis actual teeth in the show.
I mean wow, Wow and it was good.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
What would be one musical genre that you love that
might surprise your clients youwork with?
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Thomas Tallis.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Who is that.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Go and listen to Thomas Tallis and one particular
piece called Spem in Allium.
It is a 40-part motet writtensomething like 600 years ago.
It will blow your mind.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Thomas Tallis.
Okay, I'm going to look it up.
If you and your wife are goingto go on vacation right now,
where are you going without thekids?
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Without the kids.
Oh, sweden, somewhere like that, croatia, I've heard.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Croatia's awesome Never been.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Last book you read is Last book side of my bed it was
an Isaac Asimov.
It was a collection of shortstories called I think it's
called someplace something likethis the rest of the short
stories Other one I like a lotof sci-fi takes you out of your
head was Arthur C Clarke theSands of Mars, written before we
knew what Mars looked like.
You can just wander around witha little face mask on and there
(49:53):
were little aliens.
It's really cool If there wasto be a book written about your
life, tell me the title, thetitle, uh, the title, the one
man band.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Okay, one man band.
Now, paul, you, you're nevergoing to believe it.
But Netflix found out aboutthis, uh, hulu found out about
this, hbo found out.
But now they're just fightingbecause they want to get the
one-man band into the theaters,into movie production.
They've hired you as thecasting director and I need to
know who's going to star PaulMorton.
It can't be you.
Who's going to star Paul Mortonin this critically acclaimed,
(50:29):
hit new movie.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Rutger Hauer.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
I was going to say Prince.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Rutger Hauer.
You know the one the say PrinceRutger Hauer, okay, right, you
know the one, the guy who was,yeah, rutger Hauer, yeah him, he
was in Blade Runner.
He was the first replicant thathe put the nails through his
hands.
Him, amazing actor.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
I like the grittiness and toughness.
Okay, and last and mostimportant question tell me two
words that would describe yourwife.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Describe my wife or my life Wife.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
My wife.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Ah, eloquent and elegant.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Oh, I love that.
I don't think we've had thosebefore, but those are beautiful
words that describe your wife,who I can tell you you have so
much respect for Lightninground's over.
We both kind of giggled alittle bit, paul, but I love, I
always love.
I'm so grateful to interviewpeople from different countries
and perspectives, and one I lovethe Scottish.
Scottish accent, I think it'swell done.
(51:26):
I think it's fantastic and I I'mexcited that our paths have
crossed.
I'm excited to followsecondwindlifecom and make sure
that's linked in the show notes.
Everybody, I'm going to makesure that the work you do is
linked in the show notes and, um, I've just had a really enjoyed
our conversation today.
I'm grateful for our timetogether and I wish you nothing
but the best in the future thankyou pleasure.
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