367 | Leatherworking, Leading With a Restful Presence, and Healing What’s in the Gap (Scott Mawdesley)
Episode Description
Scott Mawdesley wants to inspire dads to heal, grow closer to God, and build meaningful connections. Through leatherworking and contemplative practices, Scott has learned key insights about how to grow as a man and father. In this episode, he shares how those hobbies and intentional habits have helped him lead with purpose, wisdom, and a restful presence.
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Scott Mawdesley is a social entrepreneur, author, and podcast host with over 33 years of ministry experience at several leading churches. He is the founder of Dads on Tap and the Spiritual Father Program Director at Man in the Mirror Ministries. Scott and his wife, Natalie, have been married for almost 24 years and have a son in college and a daughter in high school.
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· In leatherworking, it takes seven different tools to make one bracelet. The same is true in life: You need multiple imports to intentionally shape the life you want.
· If your reaction to a problem is bigger than the problem itself, there’s a gap that needs healing.
· Start each year by asking your kids, “Is there one area that I could get better as a dad that would be meaningful to you?”
· On March 14, kick off a journey toward deeper spiritual friendship with National Joe with a Bro Day!
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· Send a Voice Message to DadAwesome
· Apply to join the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort: Email awesome@dadawesome.org
· Subscribe to DadAwesome Messages: Text the word “Dad” to (651) 370-8618
· A Dad's Bible Journey: The Torah by Scott D. Mawdesley
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Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I got on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:00:39] Don't invest too much time trying to gut it out and figure it out on your own or just try harder. Jesus, in Scripture, never told us to try harder or work harder. What did He say? He said, Give up. You can't do it on your own. You need My help. You need the Spirit's help. You need your communities help.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:56] Hey, guys. Welcome back to DadAwesome. Today, Episode 367, I have Scott Mawdesley joining me and Scott is, he is all in to helping dads from a whole bunch of angles from being an author. He just wrote a book that we'll talk about called A Dad's Bible Journey and it's a multipart series to help dads engage with scripture with real, practical, quick takeaways. He works with the ministry Man in the Mirror with their Spiritual Fathers Initiative, we also will hit that. And then lastly, he founded an incredible initiative called Dads on Tap, gatherings about four times a year in a whole bunch of breweries all over the country, really engaging dads to invite neighbors to get into a conversation they might never have in a church. So we're going to get into the conversation in just a moment with Scott Mawdesley. I want to quick remind you guys, the DadAwesome Accelerator, I am thrilled to launch this next cohort, only ten dads. Everything we've learned in seven years at DadAwesome, condensed into this sprint, this fatherhood, let's go, let's level up, let's sprint. It's only six weeks long. It's one hour a week on Zoom. There's definitely homework and action steps every week, but thrilled to invite you in, and actually, I asked Reece, Reece joined us in one of the past cohorts. He is from Kansas and he had this to say about the Accelerator.
Reece Hale: [00:02:24] Hey, its Reece Hale, Roleland Park, Kansas. We think legacy is something that we just leave our children. But one of the things I was really able to take away from this is, not only is legacy something that we leave our children, but it's really something that we leave in our children and it's who we help them to become. It's forever. It doesn't deteriorate over the course of time. It can't be spent. It's, we're investing in their hearts and we're helping them to become the people that we've dreamt of them becoming, and that happens because we make the decision to make those investments on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual basis. So if you're a dad and you're considering taking the time to do the DadAwesome Accelerator, I would highly encourage it. It's going to cause you to maybe go a little bit deeper than you thought, and it's worth the work and it's worth the investment in your kids and in your family and yourself. And it's going to not only help you get closer to them, but also help you get closer to Jesus and help you grow as a man. So I hope that you take the challenge and you go for it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:29] So, if you're curious about joining this next round, make sure to send an email right away, email awesome@dadawesome.org. And I would love to send all the info your way, get you the application link and see if the next dates will work out. We, we're looking at both a February and a March. Yeah, just some, there's still some flexibility so get in now, though. We want to, we want to get your email. We want to get you all the info. So let's jump into this, though, today's conversation with Scott Mawdesley, this episode 367. So, Scott, I thought this would be maybe a fun place to start today. I know this about you from two angles, but making leather goods, okay. Working with leather.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:04:21] My hobby.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:22] Right. Yes. How long has the hobby been? And, yeah, like, tell me a little bit about it.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:04:26] Yeah. So one of my roommates from college is a church planter in Charlotte and started this, like, baller high end leather company called ColsenKeane.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:35] Wow.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:04:35] So the reason that's important is in his first year of business, like 15 years ago, I bought one of his leather cases, and I'm like, Man, this is really cool. And I was looking for a hobby that didn't take me away from home, right. Like golfing, you're out to the course, you're gone, right. I wanted something that I can go to the basement at night and do. And so I thought, Well, let me just try this leather work. So I bought real leather and just started like cutting and sewing and just messing around with it. And as things do, you know, a few years in, some people heard about it, said, Hey, what about Christmas gifts? And then a local bookstore said, We want some custom journals. And so, man, just kind of evolved from there. And, man, there's nothing like working with your hands, creating something, right. And then, you know, I'm holding up like a leather case I made for my computer, you know, just having something really nice to use.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:24] You can, I mean, intersect with that hobby. I mean, every hour you could touch something, whether it's a maybe something you're wearing, a bracelet.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:05:33] I wear a bracelet. Okay, So here's a cool thing, I don't know if you can actually, behind me...
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:36] Yeah.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:05:37] Inside of that shadow box, that's my last seven years of words for the year, those are bracelets I wear.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:44] So I've heard about this where you, you pray through a word and you actually wear the word. Is this, is this right?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:05:49] I wear the word. There is a constant reminder, as a bracelet, of the word, come my intention for the year. So this year is trust. But if you look down through that and one day my kiddos, right when I'm long gone, we'll be able to see what was, what, what did my dad think about and prioritize in his life, right through that little simple shadow box idea.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:07] Woah. I, okay trust is this year. Give two other examples over the past few years.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:06:12] Oh bro, you're going to, you're going to get a kick out of this one. So, as I was entering into 2020, I was in the book of Daniel and the word, my word for 2020, this was pre pandemic.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:24] Yeah, it's three months before it hit.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:06:24] Apocalypto.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:29] But you, you prayed into...
Scott Mawdesley: [00:06:29] Bro, I know. It's weird, right. Apocalypto, which means to reveal, is the core of that word. And I felt like God needed to reveal some new things, which He certainly did in 2020. So, you know, that'd be one example. And then another kind of has a dual meaning for me. I think my first one in there was just one, like I want to be one. Jesus prayed that we would be one, as He and the Father are one. Plus, U2 is my favorite band, so I love the song, One, you know. So that's two examples.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:01] Okay. Yeah, that's, that's helpful. By the way, have you seen the movie, the Mel Gibson movie, Apocalypto? Have you seen that movie?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:07:06] I, actually, have not.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:06] Okay. I'm not sure I'd recommend it. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it. It's like, I didn't breathe, the whole thing was very gritty, very tough to watch. But yeah, that's all I'll say. I'll let you decide if you want to watch it or not. It was a bit gruesome. Anyways, the okay...
Scott Mawdesley: [00:07:23] But all that back to leather, right? Like you can make things that are meaningful and that's pretty cool.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:27] Okay, now back to leather, one more time. Any parallels to the dad life? A takeaway, a learning through making things out of leather that might, could be leveraged to be like, here's a, here's a dad hack or dad tip or a principle through fatherhood.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:07:43] Yeah. You know, it's fascinating to me. I don't even think about anymore because I've been doing this for like 15 years. The number of tools and inputs it takes to make something simple. So a bracelet, I think I counted, it takes like seven different tools to make one bracelet. And I just think about building a life that's worth living, right. Like, I mean, you got to, you're trying different tools. You're trying different things, right. You got different inputs. For me, I've always had a lot of people in my life that have been there to, to guide me and to push me and to challenge me. And so, you know, I just always, I think in our lives, like, man, how many different inputs are we putting into what we want to shape, right. What are we reading? Who are we talking to? What are we listening to, right? What are we doing? I mean, it's to build a really good life it takes intentionality and it takes engaging in a lot of different ways. So that would be one idea.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:35] Yep. Oh my goodness. Being a builder, there's a Proverb that says, wise people are builders. They build with through inside intelligence. I can't quote the exact reference, but man, I want to be a builder and yet I want quick fixes in the dad life. Often I'm like, I want to like build, and I forget that a builder actually has a whole truck load or a trailer full of different tools to build. Yet I oversimplify and think it's going to be simple. So I love your parallel there. What else would you add to the theme of a dad being a builder? Anything else to build on that?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:09:08] Yeah, I would think that the, the more sophisticated, if I think in leather terms, the more, the cooler, the more sophisticated, the the bigger and better we want to build something, the more time and energy. In fact, when I started 15 years ago doing leather, I started making, I made a little wallet that was like super simple. Like if you saw it, you're like, Bro, did your eight year old make that? But as I stayed with it and learned and learned and figured out, talk to people, Right. So much of it was hands on for me of let's grab some leather. And I ruined all kinds of leather, right. Like just trying different things and figuring it out. But then I got to a place where about three years ago, I was like, You know what, I want to build something out of this expertise. So here's an example...
Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:59] Whoa. So if you're just listening, if you're not on YouTube watching like this is a full on, not just a messenger bag, it's like a full on satchel with all the...
Scott Mawdesley: [00:10:08] All the accouterments. It's got the leather or it's got brass inserts inside, right. I mean, just this thing took me about 30 hours worth of work. 15 years ago when I started, this would be a pipe dream, right. Like, there's no way.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:10:24] And these are 500 to 1,000 bucks, if you ever buy one of these.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:10:26] Listen, I had someone asked me when I, when I show this, they're like, can you make me one? And I'm like, listen up, Number one, no, I'm not going to spend that much time again. But number two, what I'd have to charge you, to make it worth my while.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:10:38] That's amazing.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:10:40] But, bro, 15 years ago, I started, I knew I wanted to do something, and I knew it would be meaningful. And just by doing it, doing the right things, being persistent, you know, 13 years later, I'm able to make something that's a lot bigger, a lot more impressive, right. Just., So that's, sometimes you just start small. And as you learn and grow, man, things grow and get bigger and new opportunities come.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:03] And if my dad skills can over 13 years because you know, we've got guys listening with a three year old and it's okay by the time their child’s 16, they actually can develop the skill of being a builder as a dad.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:11:18] Absolutely.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:21] That's, that's really fun.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:11:21] Took a lot of time to be able to get there.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:24] By form of introduction, sometimes I just dive right into a theme, but, so Natalie's your wife, 23 years? Do I have that right?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:11:30] 24 in, in March.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:32] Yes. So potentially when it's dropped, it'll be 24. And then a son in college, daughter in high school, do I have that part right?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:11:37] My son, Silas, is a freshman at Stanford University in Birmingham. And my daughter is in 9th grade, Sadie at Buford High School, go Wolves.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:46] That's incredible. I wanted to ask from the lens of your family, and the current age of your kids, the phrase, you know, being a restful presence. I think in our conversation we had, cause we've only known each other for 3 or 4 months here, but I think maybe it came up in one of the conversations and then I know it's true through your writing, through your work, leading some some different fatherhood ministries, men's ministries. What, what does that mean and how would even your kids reflect on the idea of being and caring a restful presence?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:12:20] Yeah. So those two words are actually the last two words in my life mission statement, which is I exist to curate meaningful connection through caring development with a restful presence. Those words were really kind of forged in me, at 36 years old, I was given the gift of a, of a spiritual father who, who led me toward a healing journey from a lot of childhood trauma and a lot of mess that I'd never dealt with. And a big part of that was a deep dive into contemplative practice. Silence and solitude and meditation. You know, all these disciplines of our faith that have kind of been lost to the modern Western church, right. Like we like all the things that check the boxes and we can, you know, get a bunch of stuff done. But slowing down, spending time with God in nature. What, what God really did for me, so when I first started that journey, I would read passages of scripture, Jeff, like Jesus said, Come to me, all of you who are weary, you carry a heavy burden and I'll give you rest and you will find rest for your soul, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And I would, I would see those comments like, Rest for your soul and go, Man, that sounds so good. And I have no idea what it means, right. Like, I don't even know how to get there. I'm living with anxiety and I wouldn't call it depression, but maybe depressive states, right. And I always have a knot in my stomach. And so as I was healing, working through that trauma, engaging with deeper contemplative practice, there wasn't one silver bullet, but the culmination of that journey, right. Six years, who was it that called it long obedience in the right direction? Brother Lawrence, maybe or something?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:11] I think it was. Same direction. Yes, yes. Long obedience.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:14:13] Yeah, something like that. I actually, God brought me to a place where I may live with the soul of rest, you know. And so the idea of restful presence, is I not only want to live that way, I really want to bring that into my relationships. Who I am, right? My, my kids know that I'm going to spend daily time in my prayer room, right. And so we have conversations about that. I've seen some fruit from that. Like I have a whiteboard here in my home office and my daughter has come down before and just written passages of scripture on my whiteboard, Right. And just, because she's seen me do some of these things, right. And so, you know, teaching my kids how to breathe, you know, and just be present and anchor themself. I mean, it's you know, it's a constant battle, but it's become a part of how I want to parent and who I want to be.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:07] Yes. So these are the things I heard there, is there's some healing from past, things that we carry from our past that will help us walk in more of a restful presence or carry that. There was a spiritual father, mentor, someone who cared for you that helped move towards that. There's rhythms of solitude, rhythms of seeking God. You mentioned a few others, but would you sprinkle in any other just like, man, if we want to turn up the dial of caring, like being that for our family. Which I think every dad, if we could actually lead with a restful presence, it's like a gift to our families. Is there any other that you would sprinkle in, that you would add to what you already shared, of just like, Hey, this might help us move in that direction?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:15:52] Yeah, so I'll tell you, it was, it was actually in many regards one conversation with my spiritual father that gave me a framework for starting the journey. We were, he happened, John is his name, he happened to be my boss in ministry, but obviously became more than that. And we were at his house for an offsite planning meeting and we're sitting around and you know, there's I think about ten of us. And we got on a topic of conversation, and Jeff, man, I got fired up like I was pissed.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:21] Angry. Yes. Yes.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:16:22] Yeah. And, and the whole room knew it. We got to a break and John said, Hey, come here for a second. And he pulled me out on the back deck. And he looked at me, said, Hey, what was that? And I looked at him kind of confused. I was like what was what? He said, Listen, man, he says, I know that issue is frustrating and at one level, I understand why you're frustrated. But he said, Scott, your level of frustration was so much bigger than that issue. He said, What's in the gap? Man, I'm 36 year old licensed, ordained minister, you know, and all of this. And for the first, in many regards, the first time in my life, I had an older man ask me and, and revealed to me through that question that I had gaps I was completely unaware of. And it was affecting everything. Not just the room of ministry, but, you know, my marriage, thankfully, my son was like two at the time. My daughter wasn't born yet, so it hadn't affected being a dad yet, although it would have. And there was a curiosity in me that was like, okay, what's, what needs to be revealed here? Because obviously I'm not seeing it. And then he got me connected to a really, really good counselor that began to explore some of these things and began to go through, you know, the typically the trauma and the issues we want to kind of get over and move beyond, right. But my, my, my counselor used to say, you know, if you really want to heal, if you really want a soul rest, you can't get over it, you got to go through it, you know. And so that was huge. What's in the gap? I told guys all the time, the best way for us, the most practical way for us to understand that there's a gap that we're unaware of or need to pay attention to is think back in the last two weeks of your life, whether it's with your wife or your kids or at work or in your community, wherever it might be, or even just personally. When was, was there a time when your reaction to the issue at hand was bigger than the issue at hand? If there was, you have a gap, whether you're aware of it or not, you know. And so I think that there, that, so do we know the gap? And then one more thing I'll say about it. There are two steps to healing and a soul at rest. First one is revealed. So John revealed to me I had a gap, I began to explore that. What we often do is we often think revealed is enough, right? Like reveal feels really good because it's, man, I've never knew this before. I never saw this, right. And what we tend to do is go, okay, I'm good. But revealed is the first step, but the second step is healed. So once it's revealed, there's a process necessary. For me, it happened be six years because there was quite a bit of trauma, right, to get to a place of being healed. And so that one question is kind of what revealed that stuff to me. And then we took that healing journey.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:19:12] Wow. And you mentioned a two week time frame. I only need like 24 hours to think back to.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:19:19] I could say 20 minutes, right?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:19:20] Yeah. But the response and sometimes it's like a response of even just in my thoughts, like, where did that, like I'm raging internally about something very...
Scott Mawdesley: [00:19:29] You're swearing up and down even though nobody knows it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:19:32] Or it's, it truly was for me it was last night. I was way like I was crabby and sharp at dinner with my girls. My wife called me out at the dinner table and that didn't make me feel any better to be called out. It's just like, where is this defensiveness coming? Yeah, it's so, just so I have this right, You figure out, okay, there is a gap there. Like a level of response didn't, wasn't necessary, wasn't a part of what's actually at play in this moment at the dinner table. So, so that usually the gap comes from something in the past that's unhealed or needing to be like explored further. Did I repeat that back correct?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:20:07] Yes. Spot on. My spiritual director counselor referred to it in the framework of false beliefs or hidden vows.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:20:16] Sure.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:20:17] It was kind of, and there's other terminology for that, but that was the two I use. I had a false belief and that was affecting me and I had to go figure out what that was. And then I had to learn how to live in a different way, right. And you talked about it, right. Like it's revealed to you, now what do I do with it? You know, and, and part of what we as dads do, and I would say is men is we are, we're really hard on ourselves, you know. And so I beat myself up all the time, like, you know, And so here was a shift for me. And I'll do it in kind of a tone of voice that was huge when I used to make mistakes or, you know, have run into that gap. Here was how I used to address myself. Ah, dangitt, Scott, Why did you do that again? Right. Like, it's just, and one of the, one of the turns I had to make was from believing that that defined me, which it didn't. Turning to a place word informed me. So here's the difference in tone of voice. Scott, why'd you do that again? Right. From a angry, frustrated right to a curiosity of, okay, what's really going on here? Right. And what I learned is if you can turn it away from the shame right in that voice and turn it to a curiosity that makes such a huge difference because now it's, now it's a problem we've got to solve. You know, it's like that's interesting, that's the fourth time my wife has told me I overreacted this week. What is going on there, you know?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:21:52] And this, to me, it releases us as dads to lead on the home front, but also if we want to like step into God's purposes in all these other arenas. And we do it without awareness, without it being revealed, without it being healed, we're going to bring harm in, in some areas. We're going to try to mask it over. And yeah, and often in the past I can think of times where I lead in ministry, small groups like I led publicly because I wanted to make up for what I was feeling. And it's just like, yeah, it's...
Scott Mawdesley: [00:22:29] Totally. Totally.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:29] It's destructive.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:22:30] Well, we're still going to, let's just be honest, we're still going to cause harm, right. I mean, that's, that's just it. But here's here's my commitment to my kiddos. One day when my son or daughter comes back and goes, You know, Dad, you really blew it in this area. Honestly, bro, I want to have done enough work where I go, you are so right. I am so sorry. Right. Like, can I pay for your counselor? You know what I mean? Just to, to do the work to where it's okay, you know. And they feel okay about it, too.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:59] You're not surprised. You're not defensive. You're, it's, actually, that's perfect launch point. So I bought your book. I found it on Amazon.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:23:07] Thank you for the support, man.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:08] Dads... There you go. I'm behind you, Scott. A Dad's Bible Journey. And this is the first of, is it eight parts or seven parts, you're going to release?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:23:16] First of nine. Because there are nine sections of the Bible. So this one is the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:23] And, and, and this is, guys, it's it says right in the title a Dad's Bible Journey, like it is designed and written. Here, I'm going to jump to chapter three. The chapters are less than two pages .
Scott Mawdesley: [00:23:36] Super simple for a dad to read.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:38] Exactly. And if you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing me kind of grinning and flipping through. But it's, it's pulling straight scripture with direct application for dads. And then you give like a paragraph of your own take on it. So it's not like it's hard to, like, get your arms around . But I'm so grateful. This one here is called Be Careful. It's the third chapter. There's, there's only there's 24 chapters. The whole book is 80 pages long.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:24:04] There's 24 Dad stories in the Torah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:07] Yes. That's it. And truly though, dad reflection and then into two questions. So, I wanted to just hit the questions to give them a little framework for us. So this is about the life of Noah and how Noah walked with God, but then Noah, end of Noah's life, there's this like horrific moments that it's like, what was he thinking? And nakedness and too much, too much grapes, fermented grapes. But you simply ask, is there something in your life that might cause you to make a poor decision that could negatively affect your family? If so, what do you need to do to guard against this? I think about a grenade and shrapnel and like this, like is there something that could be at some point the pin and there's hurt, that's something that I'm doing. And so, I mean, great question to reflect into. The second question, though, is what you just got after is, is there anything for which you owe your kids an apology? Just simple reflection of, well, there's likely an area that I have caused pain, have caused shrapnel already. How can I pursue this posture of I apologize, I'm growing, I love you, will you forgive me? So I just want to give a little, little peek at how practical this book is. It'll be a link to the show notes, of course, and nine books following. So I guess I'll have to have you on nine times, every time you launch your next one. How, what would you add to that, that theme, or even just to paint the picture of why you wrote, why you wrote this?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:25:31] Yeah. I love the theme. And this is one of the areas where, you know, I came from a family with a lot of trauma. But my parents were so committed to us being in the faith. And one of the great examples my dad was, is my dad was not afraid to apologize and ask for forgiveness. And so one of the things in our home is, is a strong, is a practice, and my kids roll their eyes, now, right, 2 teenagers. We never say I'm sorry in our home because honestly, what do you do with I'm sorry. I'm sorry could be I'm sorry you caught me or I'm sorry you feel that way. We say I apologize, right. We own the fact that we made a bad choice. And then we say, Will you forgive me? Right. And so it owns it. And then it recognizes that I need something from you right, in order for us to be whole. And so that's a big part of it. And how does it show up in day to day life? I'll give it to fun examples at the end of every year or so, you know, I showed you that I have some bracelets that have that theme, right, I showed you that. I have like seven of those, but I've been doing this practice every year, take 24 hours, being in the last week, for the last 18 years, I go away for 24 hours. I review the past year, look forward, set some goals. And at that retreat I have that, I set the word. One of the questions I started asking my kiddos about three years ago, as I just said, you know, I said to Silas, here's here's one example with him. I said, Buddy, I said, Is there one area that I can get better as a dad that will be meaningful to you this year? Right. And he kind of he looked at me kind of sideways and I'm like, hey, go for it, like I told you. He goes, Dad, he said, I noticed you've been cussing at me more. And he said, it makes me uncomfortable and it makes me feel unsafe. And boy, that was like ahh. And what I had been doing was, in frustration, I never called names. It wasn't that. It was just in frustration. I might be like, you know, what the hell are you, right. And so I told him, I said, Buddy, first of all, man, I apologize. Like, I do not want you to feel unsafe with me. And that's something I can work on, you know. So that was one example. And if you asked him today, he'd say, Yeah, dad's done pretty good with that. I asked my daughter the first time and she was like, No, dad. Like, I can't think of anything. I'm like, See, I'm the perfect dad, right. But I'm not. So I asked her last year and she said, she said, Dad, I wish you would listen to me more. Because I have a tendency to jump in, right. Or I have a tendency to maybe be a little distracted on the phone, right. Or it's like, okay, I want my daughter to feel like I'm present with her and listen more, you know. And so those would be a couple of examples from that particular chapter in those questions of areas where I've had to like be honest with my kids and apologize and be humble and then do the work to grow and get better.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:28:12] Yeah. Thanks for sharing both those. And yeah, it's of course there's, there's going to be 48 reflection questions in this, in this book. 2 for each of those 24 chapters. The, the, the pause principle that you shared about taking 24 hours to start the year, that's come up over the years of DadAwesome like, like this idea of take a day, take a half day, take a retreat, pause, look back, look forward. And I still think I would just ask somebody the other day, have you ever done a prayer retreat, even a half day? Have you ever done a prayer retreat? And the answer I can pretty much expect when I ask people is no, because it's scary, right. So how, who encouraged you and what would you share for encouragement to take, to a dad to just take a step into a process of deeper reflection?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:28:58] Yeah, there's a lot of different ways. You know, I think reading is a big part of that. You know, like find a topic, find an author that just interests you. And I think taking that discipline of sitting down right, nothing in your ears and other distractions and reading, I think is, is I won't call that an easy way, but it's simple stuff, you know. So, you know, for me, I've done, I love contemplative practice. I'm contemplative by nature. And so I'll usually do a couple of silence retreats a year where I go away to a beautiful place. Nature is one of the ways I connect with God. So I have some friends that have, you know, second homes and stuff. And so I'll go to spend 24 hours. And sometimes, you know, we make it super complicated. It's not like I'm praying for 24 hours or I'm fasting or I'm like, I get a good meal, right. I take a steak up there with me or something and make it. Sometimes I might fall asleep for a couple hours. I feel like, man, sometimes the best thing I do is just rest, you know, like, you know. I think it's start simple. But if I was saying taking 24 hours might be difficult, you know, I would say to get started, set aside a couple hours in a day, right, that you just and go just go some more than that that ministers to you, you know. Might be a great restaurant or you know it might be a spot up on the lake that you like to take a walk, you know. And don't over program it and just say God, I just set aside this time, see if You have anything You want to say to me right and don't doing overcomplicate it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:30:27] That's good. That's helpful. It is. It is. I tend to collect friends that are doing something in the area of helping other dads. And because it's overall, it's not that common. I'll meet 100 guys and I'll ask them and none of them will be leading something in the area of helping other dads because the, at least my hypothesis is, most of us, we've have heard the whisper, the enemy wants to whisper to us, you're not, you're not a perfect dad, so you can't lead and help other dads. I mean, I'm sure you wrestled with some of the same discouragement, that voice. But you are one of those friends, Scott, that is doing something and have done for years and years. Helpful taking initiative to gather, encourage, resource, say, keep going, cheer for these dads. And so, I mean, you're doing this for your job with your work with Man in the Mirror. You're doing this just with friends all the time. But then you also have this initiative called Dads on Tap, that is, is 6 or 7 years? How long have you been rocking that?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:31:30] Five and a half years now.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:31:31] Yes. And created for your neighbor, wasn't it? Is that where it started?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:31:36] So I'll give you a quick background, Jeff. So I'm, you know, I was a pastor, local church pastor at the time. Most of my last 30 years has been and I'm in my neighborhood interacting with a lot of guys. And in five years of many of those relationships, the answer had not been, Hey, come to my church like we got this great series. Oftentimes they didn't care, or many times they were openly hostile to things of faith because of a bad prior experience. But I'm having conversations with them and they're like struggling with how do I be a dad and what does that look like and where do I go to learn? And so church wasn't an option. So I was, had a, went to a buddy of mine, I said, Hey, another guy is a great guy and he's a great dad. And I said, Let's just, even if it's a cigar on the fire twice a year, man, like something to spend time with these dads. He said, yeah, let me know. So I was meeting three weeks later with some friends of mine who opened a new brewery in the area, and they start talking about just using their facility to engage the community. I started thinking, Man, I think my neighbors would come down to the brewery a couple times a year, have a beer and learn how to be a better dad. So I went to my buddies, I said, Hey, if you'll give me a night, let's just we'll try it. Dads On Tap, night for dads who care about being a dad. I want to see if I can provide a place for my neighbors to come. So, you know, we did it. My neighbors came, a few other guys, we said, you know, let's do it again. And, you know, and then a year later, another brewery came and then, you know, another third brewery, fourth brewery. Jeff In the last five and a half years, we've partnered with ten different breweries. We've had over almost 50 events. We've had well over a thousand men that have been live. We launched a podcast. I've been able to start mentoring some some younger guys, right. And it's just been a place for a lot of men. But my heart was guys that don't or won't go to church, right, but they care about being a dad. And we put some formality around it, right, it's a 501c3. But I often say that it's faith led, not faith based. So I tell dads all the time, if you know me, you know, Jesus is central to who I am as a dad. However, whether you share that faith, have a different faith or frankly, have no faith at all, not the point of Dads On Tap. If your a dad who cares about being a dad, you're going to learn something practical that can help you be a better dad. So, that's what we're doing, man.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:33:57] Scott! And I know you've been intentional about no logo. So, you're not letting a church grab it and say it's ours. We're going to funnel people. I love that as well. But just to borrow the principle for a second, because there's somebody listening that is like, I'm all in. I want to start a chapter and and you actually have and it'll be linked in the show notes. A way to explore bringing Dads On Tap to a brewery near you like that's amazing but then some some of us will just steal principles like we, we share in the fatherhood ministry world, we're like, it's so fast. We're like to share it, try it, do it, open handed. So the principle might be some other forum in your community combined with dads that is not the local church and that is like it just so often we hold ourselves back because either we feel like we're not the dad that can be the convener, can be the take the spearhead of, of fatherhood. You can, you can. And then secondly, the community needs dads to gather and encourage and it doesn't have to be leading with Bible verses. So, so I just like celebrate what you're leading. I had already heard years ago about, two different people brought up Dads On Tap and then we finally met a few months ago. So, pretty fun. The second thing to borrow though, or anything else you would want to add about Dads On Tap before I ask my next question?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:35:14] No, man. I mean, I think it's just been, you know, as God often does, it surprised me, right. Like I started for my neighbors and here we are five years later, just doing unique stuff and we do it once a quarter and we invite community wisdom to come and share. And so we've had superintendents, we've had coaches, we've had counselors, we've had authors. I mean, we just, we know there's so much wisdom sitting right in our community that don't have a platform that we can provide a little bit of a platform for them to be able to help influence other dads. So, you know, I'll tell you one other thing, Jeff, to your point about, man, I don't know if I can get this started. I was having coffee yesterday with a with a guy who's a part of our, my local one, I lead here in our community in Buford, and he was telling me he's like, Scott, he says, I've started just doing this little, I invited a few guys just around the firepit you know we're doing this thing like once a month. I was like, Bro, you need tell the guys at Dad's On Tap this because honestly, I don't need to go create that. If you're doing it like, let's, let's go, go do that, you know. And so sometimes you might feel like I get to have this big platform or I have to, no, sometimes if you just there's something you enjoy or you have a heart for something in your community, just go invite other guys, a couple other guys to be a part of it, you know, and see what God does with that.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:28] And I want to just go in a step deeper, that guy who's hosting that campfire, like that guy is a hero and he doesn't have a logo, doesn't have a podcast, he doesn't have. So what Dads On Tap has become is, you know, people are like, wow, this is amazing. The guy at the campfire, though, took the initiative, invited guys in, and somebody's dad is sitting. So the dad sitting next to that camp fire, he's got a son and a daughter who need a dad who is bringing their full heart, experiencing healing, experiencing some friendship, experiencing a safe place around that fire. And like their entire journey as a little boy and a little girl could be changed because of this hero who just said, I've got some wood and a campfire pit and it's so simple, but so few of us, so few of us are saying, I'll go first. So I just wanted to, like, applaud what you are, there's a ripple effect that you're not going to know about. You're not going to know about all the things that spawn from there. One last is principle, though. You've created within the Man in the Mirror ministry, like some initiatives to just move guys one step and in, in the direction of seeking wisdom from someone older than you. And, and often our churches are filled with a generation of guys in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and then a bunch of guys in their 20s, 30s and there's not, I left out of generation, 40s. I left up my own but just and I'll send guys to the spiritual fathers page just to learn more about what you guys are doing but just to to steal the principle. What's the concept that you're teeing up to get guys together?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:38:02] Yeah so I'll, I'll actually give a I'll rep a good a friend of mine so because of Dads On Tap I was talking to a friend named Kay Hiramine. Kay is the founder of Holy Smokes. If you've ever heard of Holy Smokes.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:38:14] I've heard of it. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:38:15] And when Kay heard about the work I'm doing, he says I've got to connect you to the guys with Man in the Mirror. Because he said they're going to love it and they're working on some things that you'll care about, too. And so, man, I, we had a conversation a year and a half ago. I joined the team to lead spiritual fathers. And, you know, I wouldn't be here today without John in my life and a few others that had those important conversations with me. And we've kind of lost that intergenerational connection in our world, right. Like we're very connected to our peers and we got a lot of stuff, even if it's not deep, right. It's sports and it's, you know, all these things that were. But where in our culture do we get connected to older men of wisdom, right? That can help us and some of the things we're wrestling and struggling with. And so we're doing it, Man in the Mirror, we're trying to help with simple little things like, you know, a Cup a Joe with a younger bro is, is a, is a pilot. We're doing a couple...
Jeff Zaugg: [00:39:03] Wait, say it, say it one more time. What's it called? One more time.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:39:05] It's called a cup of Joe with a younger bro.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:39:07] I love it. And you're encouraging guys just one time, go grab, grab a cup of coffee. And then it's been initiated by, though the older, the older initiates right?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:39:18] With that particular one, there's two sides to that, Jeff. The Cup a Joe with a younger bro is connected to spiritual fathers and we're going to be working in Indianapolis and Cincinnati with several churches to train a group of older men. What do you, how do you have that cup a Joe intentionally? And then how do you develop it from there? The other side of it is, is that we know that just relationships with men or they call it the you know, there's there's a friendship crisis in our world and we're not connected. We're launching a national Joe with a Bro Day on March the 14th or we're just going to encourage anybody, doesn't have to be an older guy or younger guy, could be peers and say hey, invite a friend, right, to have a cup of coffee that day and have a conversation and talk. You're going to ask three questions. Tell me your story. What's got do in your life right now? How can I help? That's it, right.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:40:10] We want in. I'm going to make sure, we want in. I want to get our guys to do Joe with a bro Day, National Day. Global, global event.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:40:19] March 14th, 2025. And we're going to have, I believe it's going to be joewithabro.com. We're getting it all set up now. Next week or so, we should have a page where you can go sign up, download those questions right, and just make a commitment to go have an intentional cup of coffee, right. And start a spiritual friendship and see what God wants to do with it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:40:38] Scott, this is, to me, this is fun to give practical, like, try this, Hey, try this. And there's probably a dozen other spots I wanted to hit in this conversation, but this is round one because we've got to go back, you know, have you back for every every launch of the next eight versions. No, Scott, I want to just ask you, is there anything you wanted to leave, you know, this conversation, the DadAwesome crew, anything else you'd want to leave with us? Any ideas or encouragement or challenge?
Scott Mawdesley: [00:41:06] Well, we've hit a lot of good ones. Let me think if there's anything that stands out. How deep do I want to go into this? So, before my healing journey, there was several things I struggled or wrestled with. So we all have a dream of who we want to be, right? Like I want to be a great dad. I want to be a great husband. I don't want to deal with anger. I don't want to feel like I'm just overwhelmed by lust, right. I mean, all these things. But oftentimes there's the dream we have that I believe God's given us and then there's the reality of how we're actually living, right. So I have this dream, but I'm struggling with pornography, right. And I'm in, I'm, you know, I'm angry at my kids and I'm, and so what we often do as men is we often try to gut it out. And what we say to ourselves is just try harder, right. Like, I just, and if we're really good or really disciplined, we might be able to gut it out for a while, right. But then we end up in the same patterns, the same issues and whatever. And so, man, I lived in frustration for many years until, until the journey of, of healing took me to a place where I realized that those things I'm struggling with are just the symptom. And no, no good doctor ever just deals with the symptoms, they figure out the underlying causes. And so what I realized was as I took my my focus off of the symptoms, I began to dig into those underlying causes. And what I discovered was that with the healing of brothers like you and with the healing of the Holy Spirit and with the healing of some mentors, I was able to live into the dream God had for me, by doing that deeper work in my life. And I would just say, dads, if there's something you're struggling with, you can't figure out how to get beyond, don't invest too much time trying to gut it out and figure it out on your own or just try harder. Jesus in Scripture never told us to try harder or work harder. What did He say? He said, give up. No, you can't do it on your own. You need my help. You need the Spirit's help. You need your community's help, right. And so sometimes the best step is to say, I'm going to give up and I'm going to call my buddy and we're going to have a coffee and I'm going to have a place where I can talk about it and figure out how do I deal with these underlying causes? Because I really believe, man, that we can align the dream and the reality of our life can be really, really closely aligned, so that we are living into that calling and purpose that God has for us, man. And that would be something I would love for all dads to experience.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:43:41] Scott, thank you. Would you actually just pray a short prayer of that? That would that would come into reality because of the Kingdom of heaven in all of us dads loved.
Scott Mawdesley: [00:43:52] Would love to, man. Would love to. Father, scripture says, in You we live and move and have our being. Thank You for your presence with us. It also says that where 2 or 3 or gather in Your name that You're there somehow in a unique way. So I believe that's true for Jeff and I, but I also believe that it's true for all those that will listen to this podcast, that You're going to be present with them in a unique way as we have these conversations. So, God just bless the men that are out there. I pray that You would give them answers to the questions they're struggling with. I pray that You connect them to the right people. I pray that You use this short conversation to maybe spark something in them that they could go explore, that they could take a next step, that they can learn more about. Maybe they just reach out to Jeff and say, Hey, I'd love to talk more about this God, because at the end of the day, You have a purpose and plan for us. And the fact that we're still here breathing means You're not done yet. And so we hold on to that hope. And God, we thank You for caring. We thank You for how much You love us as our Heavenly Father. And pray this in Your name, Amen.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:44:54] Guys, thank you so much for joining us this week for episode 367 with Scott Mawdesley. All the conversation links, the transcripts, the quotes, kind of some of the action steps are all going to be found at dadawesome.org/podcast. It'll be the most recent episode or, of course, you could just search 367. That Joe with a Bro Day and different initiatives launched by the spiritual fathers part of Man in the Mirror ministries. I want to make sure you guys save the dates and let's take action. Let's be dads who take action from something from today's conversation. Maybe it's praying about a word of the year and collecting those and having just a rhythm of, man, I'm taking ground in a certain area. Maybe it's taking on leather working. Maybe it's hosting a campfire. Potentially it's finding a local brewery and connecting with Scott and the Dads On Tap movement to be a local chapter. So many options, but let's be dads who move forward and take ground and keep growing. Guys, thanks for listening this week. Thanks for being DadAwesome.
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· 17:53 - "The most practical way for us to understand that there's a gap that we're unaware of or need to pay attention to is think back in the last two weeks of your life, whether it's with your wife or your kids or at work or in your community, wherever it might be. When was there a time when your reaction to the issue at hand was bigger than the issue at hand? If there was, you have a gap, whether you're aware of it or not. There are two steps to healing and a soul at rest. First one is revealed. So John revealed to me I had a gap, I began to explore that. What we often do is we often think revealed is enough. Reveal feels really good because, I've never knew this before, I never saw this. What we tend to do is go, okay, I'm good. The second step is healed. So, once it's revealed, there's a process necessary. For me, it happened be six years because there was quite a bit of trauma to get to a place of being healed. That one question is kind of what revealed that stuff to me. And then we took that healing journey."
· 41:37 - "Oftentimes there's the dream we have that I believe God's given us and then there's the reality of how we're actually living. What we often do as men is we often try to gut it out. What we say to ourselves is just try harder. But then we end up in the same patterns, the same issues. I lived in frustration for many years until, until the journey of, of healing took me to a place where I realized that those things I'm struggling with are just the symptom. No good doctor ever just deals with the symptoms, they figure out the underlying causes. What I realized was as I took my focus off of the symptoms, I began to dig into those underlying causes. What I discovered was that with the healing of brothers and with the healing of the Holy Spirit and with the healing of some mentors, I was able to live into the dream God had for me, by doing that deeper work in my life. And I would just say, dads, if there's something you're struggling with, you can't figure out how to get beyond, don't invest too much time trying to gut it out and figure it out on your own or just try harder."
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