Sean Waldron on Creativity, Healing, and the Work That Starts at Home

Gap to Gig Episode 7 with Sean Waldron
===

[00:00:00] Sean: What I've noticed is that work, that job has, it doesn't care about you. It doesn't care about you as a dad, doesn't care about you as a person. Cares about the bottom line.

[00:00:09] Michael: Yep.

[00:00:10] Sean: In some ways it should, right? That might be its purpose. It's the bottom line, but you don't have a bottom line.

[00:00:17] Michael: Yep.

[00:00:18] Sean: That can just be substituted for somebody else.

[00:00:22] ​

[00:00:29] Michael: Welcome to Gap to Gig, the show for dads reimagining how work fits into life, not the other way around. It's where we talk about what comes next, how to make sense of the in between, and who we become in the process. I'm your host, Michael Jacobs, and today I'm thrilled to welcome back Sean Waldron, a creative nomad turned storyteller, filmmaker and founder of ROAR, a community helping dads rediscover purpose and connection through creativity and fatherhood. Last week, Sean opened up about creativity, fatherhood, and purpose in a way that really stuck with me. So I invited him back. I wanted to continue the conversation because I think he could have easily gone for another hour or two. So, we're gonna pick up today, right where we left off diving deeper into how Sean's creativity shows up at home, what he's building with ROAR, and how dads can stay grounded in the middle of work, family, and everything in between.

[00:01:13] Sean, welcome back man. I'm so happy to have you to keep this conversation going. Thanks for being here.

[00:01:17] Sean: Yeah, likewise man. Translation is, I'm very long-winded, I think.

[00:01:23] Michael: I don't know, I just went through a lengthy intro, so, it could be either one of us.

[00:01:27] Sean: Yeah, match made.

[00:01:28] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. But that conversation last week was so interesting to me, so intriguing. And I wanna start out with, I wanna go back to something you mentioned last week. You were describing filming with your son as a way to enter his world, were the words that you used.

[00:01:43] And I was wondering, like, what does that moment tell you? Not just about creativity, but creativity's connection. It's more than self-expression in this case, like with you and your son. How does creativity's connection work, you know, as a father to your child?

[00:01:58] Sean: Kids are so imaginative. I mean, they're, you know, it's hard for me to remember I've been around for longer, 37 years or so. And so I know a lot more than my son does, and I know a lot more than my daughter does. And they're learning the simplest things. They're learning, you know, what wind is.

[00:02:24] And so it, it's this cool, I don't know, it's just this cool experience of, the cliche is seeing the world through their eyes, right? But, for me, it's really, I think of just getting on the floor with him and playing. And when I mean entering his world, I think I'm just entering his imagination. What is he thinking about?

[00:02:49] What is he dreaming about? What are, you know, his Hot Wheels cars saying to each other in such a fascinating world to me? I'm more imaginative. So I love that, kind of stuff anyways, but in, in, in means of connection with him, I think it's just he's in his world, you know? And if dad, if the guy who is supposed to be leading and guiding and parenting and being the beacon in his life is able to come and experience the monotony, the moments that he's in right here, right now with him, gosh, that connection it, it, just, I feel like it just lights a lot of things on fire. I think it just brings a lot of synapse and connection into his brain and just,

[00:03:44] Michael: Yeah.

[00:03:45] Sean: so yeah, I, it's just really fun for me to see where he's at, where he's going and being a little bit of a part of that.

[00:04:00] Michael: Yeah.

[00:04:01] Sean: Yeah.

[00:04:01] Michael: I gotta imagine too that become part of like enter into his world that

[00:04:06] Sean: mm-hmm.

[00:04:08] Michael: He, it's almost inviting you in and it's like, for him, it's like he's getting validation that his world exists, right?

[00:04:16] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:17] Michael: And so there's that connection there of, okay, I've created this world. Like to me, this is the world I'm living in and this is what I'm thinking about right now.

[00:04:24] And now I'm bringing in my father, my dad, like

[00:04:28] Sean: somebody

[00:04:28] Michael: I probably look up to, somebody that, is teaching me the ways of the world teaching me things. I don't realize he might at this age or a young age that he's teaching me these things

[00:04:37] But there is this, by inviting you in there, he feels some validation that kind of creates this new connection. Does that

[00:04:46] Sean: Yeah,

[00:04:47] Michael: sound right?

[00:04:47] Sean: Oh, bang on. Validation is such a great word. Validation. I mean, think about it for ourselves, like what would it mean for somebody to come down to our level and validate what we're doing and validate our thoughts and validate our feelings? Huge. It would be huge.

[00:05:02] Michael: Absolutely.

[00:05:03] Sean: Yeah, you're bang on. I love that.

[00:05:05] Michael: Thank you. Alright, so, I, want to kind of explore this a little bit deeper. You mentioned last week that our gifts aren't just for the workplace. How can dads start to recognize the creative skills that they already use without realizing it, even if they don't think of themselves as creative? For example, you mentioned last week accountants,

[00:05:27] Sean: right,

[00:05:28] Michael: and, and on the surface, maybe there's not as much creativity in accounting as there is in filmmaking. Maybe there are some accountants that get a little creative, but that might not be the, right decision there,

[00:05:44] Sean: mm-hmm.

[00:05:45] Michael: But I think even with accountants, there is, they're still telling their story, right?

[00:05:49] Sean: Yeah.

[00:05:50] Michael: They have to tell a story with numbers as opposed to telling a story with visuals.

[00:05:54] Sean: Yeah.

[00:05:55] Michael: Maybe there's some visuals in there. Maybe they have a financial statement. You're talking about that. But there are some creative elements in how they put their numbers together, how they present them, how they balance their budgets, how they present the balance sheet.

[00:06:07] Sean: Yeah.

[00:06:07] Michael: So like how do you, when you say that gifts aren't just for the workplace, how does somebody maybe in a non-creative position like accounting, or maybe it's you know, or it could be any type of work,

[00:06:18] Sean: Yeah.

[00:06:19] Michael: how can they find that creative through line of like what they do and kind of bring that home to so that they

[00:06:26] Sean: yeah.

[00:06:27] Michael: feel more creative within their house?

[00:06:30] Sean: Yeah. It's, I, was thinking about this earlier with my son. He loves pattern making. For Halloween, he took out all of his candy and matched it all to the colors, right?

[00:06:40] Michael: Yeah,

[00:06:41] Sean: Within accounting, I feel like there's a lot of pattern making. I feel like there's a lot of, as you said, creativity in ways to balance the numbers or find spaces where things can add up differently and provide opportunity somewhere.

[00:06:54] I think when I was talking about that, what I was really interested in is that this idea of skill, this idea of something that you hone as a means of getting paid for, as a means of obtaining income. That skill is not just reserved for that arena of a paycheck. And so where accountants can be balancing a balance sheet, that creativity, that problem solving of finding patterns, finding matches, finding gaps can be instituted at home just as much as it can at work.

[00:07:38] Michael: Right.

[00:07:38] Sean: And what a skill to bring home to the kids. You know, it doesn't have to be flashcards, it doesn't have to be multiplication tables. Like with my son, just finding cool ways to represent what's in front of you in a more interesting pattern or possibility than was originally thought of, right? And I'm thinking of a 4-year-old, so this might be different for like a 12-year-old, right? A 12-year-old might, might really get something from learning how to budget or learning how to handle money. I didn't learn how to do that. All I learned was save your money, stop buying Pokemon cards which, you know, shame on me because now I'm 37, and I don't have a million dollars in the bank. There's, a lesson to be had for that type of skill

[00:08:34] Michael: Yeah.

[00:08:34] Sean: to set you up for the future. What did you need back then that you can provide for your kid now?

[00:08:41] And I think that's kind of, that's a little bit of the, thesis of that thought is, Hey, there's a lot of skill that you have.

[00:08:49] Michael: Yep.

[00:08:50] Sean: How can you impart that in ways that you might set them up for a problem that you're trying to solve now? How can you help them solve it a little bit earlier?

[00:09:00] Michael: Yep. That's interesting. I, didn't expect you to go back in time as you discussed this, where you're saying like, what did you kind of wish you had when you were your kids' age or when you were younger to know now that would help you out. But that makes a lot of sense in terms of, bring, you know, we talked, started with creativity here, right, but it's all kind of comes back to building this, building the right skills for your life. What is right for you, and what is right for your family? Like what works for you might not work for the next person,

[00:09:37] Sean: Totally.

[00:09:38] Michael: right? So, some people may have had more experience with balancing budgets and managing money and saving and spending when they were younger and some might not have.

[00:09:49] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:51] Michael: And, in your case, okay, well, it was what it was, and you are what you are today, but, for you, your ideal is like, okay, for the next generation, for the people that I am, that are important to me,

[00:10:08] Sean: Yep.

[00:10:09] Michael: That are my family, I want to give them different lessons based off my experience, right?

[00:10:13] Sean: Yep.

[00:10:14] Michael: And I can take what I've learned in my work and I can start to apply that back home, so I can take what makes me creative at home, and yes, I can help my 4-year-old learn patterns today.

[00:10:27] Sean: Yeah.

[00:10:27] Michael: I can help 'em like match, okay, by color, we can match by counts, we can match by name,

[00:10:34] Sean: Yeah.

[00:10:34] Michael: by the letters in there, right? We can match by shape, size, weight,

[00:10:37] Sean: Yep.

[00:10:37] Michael: all different types of things. Now, as they get older, you can keep progressing that type of creativity of like, okay, you clearly know how to match colors when you're four, but now that you're 12, maybe you are trying to figure out like what colors blend together?

[00:10:50] What colors look nice? Now you aren't trying to create something more visual

[00:10:55] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:56] Michael: and you know, do you, does blue complement pink well or does yellow complement green? Like what kind of go together

[00:11:03] Sean: yeah,

[00:11:04] Michael: to create something? So, there's kind of, it, I guess what I'm trying to get at is from your message, to me it's like it's important to be creative and recognize like everybody has creativity in them and it's always evolving.

[00:11:17] Sean: Yeah. Sure.

[00:11:18] Michael: You can bring that home and bring it home to your 4-year-old today, and when he's seven in three years, you can bring home a different type of creativity to him that matches where he's at.

[00:11:30] Sean: Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:11:32] Michael: Does that make sense in terms of like what you are describing of, you know, yes, for an accountant, it's, maybe it's pattern recognition.

[00:11:42] For a filmmaker, it's storytelling type stuff, but like what you teach your son today is that it's probably not the same thing you're gonna teach him three years from now.

[00:11:53] Sean: Right. Yeah.

[00:11:55] I think what you're saying is meet them where they're at. And it kind of goes back to, to your first question. If we're getting on their level, if we're meeting 'em where they're at, and we're bringing the skills that we know how to do, we're creating a good in their life. And generationally what I think is good begets good, right?

[00:12:19] So what we can learn from our generation of parents who parented us, the different lessons that we took from our experience, we can apply to how we parent our kids now. I think good starts at home. I think a better world starts at home. I think all the things that we hope and dream, they start within the, four or eight walls, six walls, however many walls you have at home, right?

[00:12:44] And, that, that pattern of good can happen over and over again. And so if we want something better in the future, it starts here. And I think the juxtaposition of that is, is the word shame. And, what I was thinking about when you were asking me that question is the workplace is, this might be a, an overreaching blanket statement, but a lot of the times my experience and some of the experiences that I've heard is that the workplace is kind of this breeding ground for shame.

[00:13:17] You do. And your worth comes from that doing. Kind of what we talked about last time. Your, self, the vision of yourself comes from whether or not you're able to succeed or not at work, right? That breeds shame, that breeds contempt, that breeds things that are bad and ugly. And if our doing from the skills that we have only resides in that platform, in that arena, we're going to battle shame over and over again.

[00:13:51] And that's the opposite of good. Or that conflicts with good, right? But if we have those skills and we recognize that the job is more or less just a, a furnace for what happens at home, we can take these things that we care about. We can take these things that we're good at. We can take these skills, bring them home, teach them to our kids in creative ways or ways that matter to you, or ways that you can just get on the ground with your child

[00:14:19] Michael: Yep.

[00:14:19] Sean: and create good in their life.

[00:14:21] That over and over again is going to create something magnificent, I think.

[00:14:31] Michael: I couldn't agree more.

[00:14:32] Sean: Yeah.

[00:14:33] Michael: I think what really sticks with me, what you just said was, it starts at home,

[00:14:38] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:39] Michael: right?

[00:14:39] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:40] Michael: The good starts at home. Like, if you define your life by your work and your work only, and you're a dad, what are you doing to support your home? What are you doing to get the satisfaction of providing for, providing opportunity for your family?

[00:15:00] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:01] Michael: It's, sure, you could go out and make $2 million a year,

[00:15:04] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:05] Michael: spend no time with your kids. Are you satisfied at the end of the day? Me personally, I don't think I would be.

[00:15:14] Sean: Yeah. Me neither.

[00:15:15] Michael: Right? I would rather make sure that I can, I'm defined by what I do at home first because, for me, yes, work is necessary and work is a means to accomplish certain things, to earn a living, right?

[00:15:27] Sean: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:15:30] Michael: Am I gonna get paid to, to stay at home?

[00:15:32] But, for me, ultimately, throughout my life, my goal isn't to just be the best at work. I want to be the best at everything that I do, but I'm not, I don't wanna be remembered for my work.

[00:15:47] Sean: Yeah.

[00:15:48] Michael: I want to be remembered for what I set up my kids, my family, the people that are important to me most, my friends, what success I set them up for,

[00:15:56] Sean: Yep.

[00:15:57] Michael: Right? When I go, I hope that I'm remembered for, yeah, you know, without him, I wouldn't have been able, I never would've learned about X, Y, or Z. Never would've experienced A, B, or C.

[00:16:09] Sean: Yeah.

[00:16:09] Michael: Right.

[00:16:10] I'm better off for having spent that time with him.

[00:16:13] Sean: Yep.

[00:16:13] Michael: I'd rather be known for that than any business I start, any job I ever had

[00:16:17] Sean: Yep.

[00:16:18] Michael: To, at the end of the day, none of that really matters.

[00:16:21] Sean: Totally.

[00:16:22] Michael: Right?

[00:16:22] But, to

[00:16:22] Sean: me,

[00:16:23] Michael: personally, it's like what matters starts at home. It starts with the kids, right?

[00:16:27] Sean: Yeah.

[00:16:29] Michael: But there's a way to kind of connect the two, right? And that's what I think you're getting at, which is okay, at home, or at work, you can take the skills that you practice at work every day, and you can bring those home

[00:16:39] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:40] Michael: and you can translate them for where your kids are at,

[00:16:44] Sean: Yeah.

[00:16:45] Michael: Right?

[00:16:46] It doesn't have to be everything's like you're not gonna teach them necessarily how to, you know, forecast the next six months of sales, right? Like, yeah, maybe there's a 4-year-old that's interested in that, but that's probably not the first thing that's gonna happen, but, maybe like, for you, it's teaching them kind of how to tell a story

[00:17:06] Sean: yeah. Right.

[00:17:06] Michael: how to film it, and like, what does that look like when it's done, right?

[00:17:09] Sean: Yeah.

[00:17:10] Michael: And maybe as, and as the years come up and you start, money becomes more recognizable in the world for your child,

[00:17:18] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:19] Michael: maybe you start talking about money and like, okay, this is how you earn money. This is how you save money, right? Like you can bring those types of skills, the things that you practice at work, back home, but again, without home, all you have left is work.

[00:17:34] And who wants that?

[00:17:35] Sean: Yeah, I, semantically, what are we talking about? You know?

[00:17:40] Michael: Yep.

[00:17:41] Sean: Work, I think we, we conflate it with meaning. I think we conflate it with life. But what is your work as a person, first of all, what's your work as a dad? Your work isn't your job, right? If we wanted to take a 30,000 foot view on this, and I think this is what you're saying, is that your purpose isn't to go to a building somewhere and type into a keyboard, right? Or yell numbers at a, a machine or stocks or something. I don't know. I obviously, I don't do that line of work, so I have no idea what I'm saying. But your work is not a place that you go to

[00:18:24] Michael: Right.

[00:18:25] Sean: that, that if we conflate the two, what we're gonna, what I've noticed is that work, that job has, it doesn't care about you.

[00:18:34] It doesn't care about you as a dad. It doesn't care about you as a person. It cares about the bottom line.

[00:18:38] Michael: Yep.

[00:18:39] Sean: In some ways it should, right? That, might be its purpose. It's the bottom line. But you don't have a bottom line

[00:18:46] Michael: Yep.

[00:18:47] Sean: that can just be substituted for somebody else.

[00:18:51] Michael: Right.

[00:18:53] Sean: Your, work, your purpose, you, the thing that, that you do.

[00:18:57] Your duty is at home with the people that you care about because that's the future. It's not stocks and bonds.

[00:19:06] Michael: Yep, that's right. So, okay. leads me to another question of like, your work is at home. You have your job work, but you also have your work at home

[00:19:20] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:20] Michael: of being at, being a father, being a husband, being a spouse, whatever your role is at home. How do, what is your ideal work rhythm look like? Something that actually supports both your family and creativity.

[00:19:34] Like if you can create, like how you balance your time, how would that look?

[00:19:41] Sean: I think I've found a really good balance lately. Over the last month and a half, I've found a way to, to enjoy the work while also having a lot of space to spend presently with my family. I think, I think I'm a little bit of a, an X factor right now because I'm unemployed, so that's the elephant in the room.

[00:20:14] But the work that I'm finding is that something that the CEO of our sister company, when I was working for, for my last job, we had a sister company that was a mortgage company. The CEO of that company was talking about his workday, and what he really hammered home was protecting your morning. If you can protect your morning, if you can wake up and you can do your rhythm that sets you up for the rest of the day, you're gonna find a lot more comfort, peace, ease, breath throughout the rest of the day.

[00:20:59] And me as an employee was like, sure, dude, like I gotta clock in at eight. Like this isn't,

[00:21:04] Michael: Right.

[00:21:05] Sean: This isn't something that is doable for me at this point, but what I'm finding here in this space now I think there's a couple different philosophies that I'm starting to either uncover or agree with.

[00:21:23] One is that work job to me feels a lot more open-ended. I'm in the throes of building a creative consultancy. And so I'm, you know, my, if we, I'm gonna use the word work. I know we just talked about semantics and what it is at home, but lemme say work.

[00:21:49] Michael: Yep.

[00:21:50] Sean: My job work is that I'm learning the structure of that business, or I'm building the structure of that business.

[00:21:56] I'm building this platform. I'm building the, the onboarding questions, the offers, all of this stuff that, that represent like a workable business that I can get paid for. I'm working on that. That comes later on in the day.

[00:22:13] Michael: Yep.

[00:22:13] Sean: My morning, what I'm protecting in the morning. I'm protecting my mind in the morning.

[00:22:17] I'm protecting my heart in the morning, is that I start by studying and reading the Bible. That's the first thing that I need to do. And then the second thing that I do is I work on ROAR. Now, I know that ROAR isn't gonna bring me an income, or I don't think it's gonna bring me an income for a while, but it's the passion that I have.

[00:22:37] And that's kind of the second philosophy, is there's, I think, passions and hopes and desires that many of us have to do something well and to do something purposeful. Right now, I have space to do that, and I'm protecting that as much as I possibly can. And so what I'll do in the morning is, I'll, and I kind of came up with this, this arbitrary rule of 30 minutes.

[00:23:07] So I'll sit down, I'll put 30 minutes on my timer on my phone, and I'll study. I'm committing to 30 minutes of study. Most times, like I, I go well beyond 30 because I get into some sort of rabbit hole. I get into some rhythm and I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Let me, see how this says over here. And, you know, I start pulling from different aspects, but I commit to doing that for 30 minutes.

[00:23:28] Michael: Right.

[00:23:29] Sean: Once that's done, I'll do the same thing for ROAR. And I'm writing, right now, a book. I'm, doing the documentary and the book at the same time. Documentary's waiting 'cause I'm waiting for my buddy to come in to do his his interview. So, in the meantime, I'm writing a book, and I'll put 30 minutes on the clock.

[00:23:49] I'll commit to writing for 30 minutes. The timer will go off. I'll hit stop and I'm in the middle of something, I'll just keep going. Maybe an hour passes by, an hour and a half. But all of that time that I spent committing to the things that I know were gonna fill me up in the morning

[00:24:06] Michael: Yep.

[00:24:06] Sean: when I get done with that, when my brain is exhausted from doing the things that I have passion for I'll go eat lunch and then I'll come back and I'll do the work on the creative consultancy.

[00:24:17] And I feel like all of this stuff that I care about, I've poured out, right? I've poured out and in, in the same way I'm being filled up by the activity of it so that when I go to the thing that I'm not necessarily as passionate about, I can show up kind of ready to do the monotony or do the doldrum or do the thing that isn't as exciting.

[00:24:42] Michael: Right.

[00:24:43] Sean: Because everything has that not exciting part to it.

[00:24:47] Michael: Yep.

[00:24:48] Sean: And, I don't know how good I've been in the past at doing the not exciting things. So, you know, it sucks that I, I don't have a quote unquote job right now and a paycheck coming in, but holy smokes, am I thankful for this opportunity to just to protect that morning.

[00:25:10] And I get it. I get what this CEO was saying. This multimillionaire CEO was saying, he said, don't do work in the morning. I see it because it's such a garden. It's such a garden. And if we're able to, till that garden and able to feed it, I'm seeing just this amount of growth personally, even professionally that I haven't seen in a very long time.

[00:25:35] Michael: I bet. We had on episode two, we had on a mental performance coach, Jesse Holmes, and he talked about, starting with the smallest unit of time that you can commit

[00:25:48] Sean: Yeah.

[00:25:49] Michael: to start building new habits, right, and his was like just 10 minutes a day,

[00:25:52] Sean: Yeah.

[00:25:52] Michael: right? You're doing 30 minutes a day, right? Like, it, for some that's the perfect time.

[00:25:57] For others it's 10 minutes.

[00:25:58] Sean: Right.

[00:25:59] Michael: There is the Pomodoro technique, which is what, 25 minutes on, five minutes off and

[00:26:02] Sean: Yeah.

[00:26:03] Michael: you keep repeating that. So it's like you find that unit of time that works for you to solely focus on the one thing

[00:26:10] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:10] Michael: And do it well. And that One thing could be your Bible study, it could be your writing your book,

[00:26:18] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:18] Michael: it could be working on your documentary. It could be doing the next thing for your creative consultancy. It could be spending time with your 4-year-old, spending time with your newborn, right, like

[00:26:27] Sean: Yeah.

[00:26:28] Michael: Just solely dedicating 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Just do that one thing and do it well.

[00:26:35] Sean: Yeah.

[00:26:35] Michael: And then like you said, you get into a groove and all of a sudden it's like, okay, I thought I was only doing this for 30 minutes and now it's, you know, 75 minutes later and I'm still cranking away at this, and look how much I've accomplished. So,

[00:26:47] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:48] Michael: it, it's really interesting to me to see that the congruence between what people that are really good at their craft do,

[00:26:59] Sean: Yeah.

[00:27:00] Michael: how they do it, right?

[00:27:01] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:01] Michael: It's always like breaking it down into smaller chunks and just focus on one thing at a time,

[00:27:07] Sean: Yeah.

[00:27:07] Michael: especially when you have so many different things going on.

[00:27:09] Sean: Yep.

[00:27:10] Michael: Right. So I'm wondering what advice then would you give to dads that are trying to build something creative? You're doing it right now, you're building multiple creative things, right? You're doing the documentary, you're writing a book, you're starting a creative consultancy. What advice would you give to dads that are trying to build something creative while also managing the family obligations at home when, especially when time and energy can get tight?

[00:27:35] Sean: Mm-hmm. I think it's simple. You know, I think it's simple. It's not easy necessarily, but I think it's simple. It's just show up and do the work. You know, you've heard it from a thousand different people. I'll be 1,001 at this point. Show up and do the work. It's as simple as that.

[00:27:51] Michael: Yep.

[00:27:52] Sean: I find that if I'm, if I'm not really into writing today, but I know I'm committing to that 30 minutes, something's gonna happen in that 30 minutes.

[00:28:05] I've been stuck on the same chapter for a week. I've been stuck on the same paragraph for the last week, and I'm still there for 30 minutes wrestling with it. Something comes from the wrestling, right? I'm not getting the chapter necessarily executed or finished. But in that wrestling, there's growth happening in my brain and I can see it.

[00:28:27] There's new pathways being formed. And so if you're on the fence of starting, just start. Just do the work, you know? I'll say it, I'll say it till I'm blue in the face.

[00:28:39] Michael: You and me both.

[00:28:40] Sean: Yeah, man, it, I mean you're experiencing the same thing with the podcast and with working with Gap to Gig. Like showing up, seeing the stories, building this podcast, doing the work to edit. I mean, I know how much work goes into all of that, but here it is, man. Like

[00:28:59] Michael: Right.

[00:28:59] Sean: You're seeing the fruit of it and you're seeing the fruit of these conversations. So it's a lot of just, start. Commit the 10 minutes, the 25 minutes, the 30 minutes, whatever it is that you can do, even when time is pressing.

[00:29:16] And just sit, and, or walk or whatever and just do the work.

[00:29:21] Michael: Yep. Couldn't agree more. So, alright, you can spend a week on the same paragraph.

[00:29:30] Sean: Yeah.

[00:29:30] Michael: You've just spent the past week just trying to work through the same chapter, the same paragraph, just day in and day out. 30 minutes at a crack.

[00:29:38] Sean: Yep.

[00:29:38] Michael: When you catch yourself chasing perfection, which I presume is what you're doing here,

[00:29:43] Sean: Yeah.

[00:29:43] Michael: You might not be going for like absolute perfection for that paragraph, but you're trying to find what that perfect connection is to

[00:29:49] Sean: Yeah.

[00:29:49] Michael: get you past to the next paragraph. How do you reset when you get stuck like that?

[00:29:53] Sean: Yeah, that's a great question. Funny you say that, the chapter I'm on is about perfection. So that word is very timely.

[00:30:02] Michael: Yeah.

[00:30:04] Sean: I love that word. Man, I think we talked about it last week, I think. Perfect is a cuss word in our culture. It's like hawking a loogie, right?

[00:30:17] Michael: Sure.

[00:30:19] Sean: But I think it's such a beautiful, powerful word. I think it's, I, think it's like a beacon of light. I think it's a, a lighthouse on the shore, right? It gives you a place to go when you're lost. It gives you a place to, to point towards when you're out on the seas of doubt, right? And so I, I don't necessarily think that I'm trying to get away from being perfect.

[00:30:48] I don't even necessarily think that I'm trying to be perfect. I think I'm just trying to pursue the light of perfection because in that, I think, is the most honesty. I think the pursuit is honor,

[00:31:07] Michael: Yep.

[00:31:07] Sean: right? I feel, like I'm honoring whoever might read or interact with whatever I'm doing. I feel like I'm honoring them with the pursuit of the wrestling, with the chiseling, with the crafting.

[00:31:22] And I, you know I'm, a sucker for masters of craft. I, like I will anything craft dive in head first, face first in. Craft coffee, craft beer, arts, sculpture, music. Like if someone's insanely good, if someone's a master, like I'm diving in and I'm figuring out like what they do and how they do it because it's beautiful.

[00:31:49] It's beauty incarnate, right? I'm drawn to masters. The best masters know that they don't know anything, right? And so this idea of mastery is just this unraveling of what you think you know and realizing like it's buffoonery, right?

[00:32:09] And so it's, what I like to do, what I like to do with mastery, what I like to do with perfection is kind of stay warm by that fire, but not get burned by it. Because I know I'm never gonna be perfect. I know I'm never gonna be like this ultimate master that's, you know, the top, I could be, but at the same time, like those masters know that's not the destination, right?

[00:32:34] They're not trying to be the top of the mountain. They're just trying to experience this, bold, lush, beauty of mastery, of perfection. So, as I'm writing and as I'm stuck on this, paragraph, as I'm stuck on this chapter, I find that the reset comes when I'm just able to imbue as much honesty as possible into the action.

[00:33:06] If I'm able to be honest with myself and with the, words, the ideas that I'm trying to get down on paper, I find that is a great reset to just move the needle, even the slightest bit forward. In practice, I guess, I'm shifting around the ways that I say stuff. I'm shifting ideas to maybe instead of being at the end, to be at the front, and I'm composing this thing all with the intent of just like what's, what am I really trying to say? What am I really trying to get out here? Because if I'm not honest with myself, then I'm not gonna be honest with you. And if I'm not honest with you, what's the point in doing anything with me?

[00:33:52] Michael: Yeah.

[00:33:53] Sean: So, yeah, I mean, here I am again, six minutes into an answer when we already did one podcast.

[00:34:04] Michael: No, it's interesting that, you know, there's this undercurrent of honesty when you're chasing perfection, is what I'm hearing you say.

[00:34:11] Sean: Yeah.

[00:34:11] Michael: Like, right,

[00:34:12] Sean: Totally..

[00:34:12] Michael: Your pursuit of perfection isn't for perf, perfection's sake.

[00:34:16] Sean: Right?

[00:34:17] Michael: It's for being truthful. It's for

[00:34:21] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:22] Michael: being yourself and going what you believe is the right path forward.

[00:34:27] Sean: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:34:28] Michael: Right.

[00:34:28] Sean: Totally.

[00:34:29] Michael: Right. And, also, you've kind of created a riddle here of you referred to perfection as both a curse word and a beacon of light.

[00:34:38] Sean: Right?

[00:34:39] Michael: Right.

[00:34:40] Sean: Yep.

[00:34:41] Michael: I am curious how you, how it can be both, but it's quite a riddle.

[00:34:45] Sean: That I think the culture has made it a cuss word. I think our pop cultureness has treated that word like one of the ways that I explain it in this chapter is that it, we treat it like a vampire, right? We spray holy water in the form of you're perfect just the way you are. So it doesn't, you know, sink its fangs into our pulse.

[00:35:13] The way that I look at it though is not a vampire. It's not trying to suck from you. It's trying to draw you somewhere. So it's not trying to take, it's trying to lead you in a way that is more full than what you have right now. You're not perfect the way that you are, but there is something that is perfect that you can get closer to, right? And I think that's hard to hear because that word is so charged. When I say you're not perfect the way you are, to me, if I tell myself that I'm not perfect the way I am, it almost translates as you're worthless in ways. It can.

[00:35:58] Michael: Or, right, or it could be the flip side of that, of I have something to strive for.

[00:36:01] Sean: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Absolutely. So the cuss word of being perfect is what I think the culture is doing. And for me yeah, I just, I see it as a, as something more beautiful than that.

[00:36:22] Michael: I love it. I think we could probably talk about perfection for another two hours, but

[00:36:26] Sean: Yeah, for sure.

[00:36:27] Michael: let's save that for another conversation because I do wanna make sure, I wanna, I've been really interested in this and it's taken me almost two full episodes to get to talking about your production of Silly Cannon Balls

[00:36:40] Sean: Yeah.

[00:36:40] Michael: and building ROAR and writing this book. What is, I kind of want to dig into that a little bit.

[00:36:47] Sean: Yeah.

[00:36:47] Michael: What does your process look like right now?

[00:36:49] Sean: Good question. Creative process and creating those things, or creative process and just like showing up to ROAR as a thing that I'm doing.

[00:37:01] Michael: Well, I think I intended it for the first part of that, but I think I'm kind of interested in both. I'm curious what your creative process is for actually building, like creating this documentary about fatherhood.

[00:37:11] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:11] Michael: How do you go from idea in your head to like the trailer that's on your website right now, which is like really like grade a, high quality, movie-type trailer, like cinema, cinematic trailer, like, how do you get from idea in your head to this thing that you're creating?

[00:37:31] Like what is your process like for that? But also what is your process for like being creative, like figuring out the direction, showing up every day and

[00:37:41] Sean: Yeah.

[00:37:42] Michael: building these different things.

[00:37:43] Sean: Yeah. I maybe I alluded to it earlier when I said what is the thing that you know you needed when that you can create now? And I think that's a lot of the heart behind ROAR as an, as a project or as a company. I've spent a lot of time reflecting on who I am as a person, who I am as a dad. My past. A lot of the things that make me or have molded me into the person that I am now. The way that I parent is influenced the way that I was parented. Some of it's good. Some of it not great.

[00:38:27] Michael: Right.

[00:38:28] Sean: There's a lot of holes that I've seen in my life that I've experienced. A little bit of background is my mom had paranoid schizophrenia.

[00:38:39] Michael: Right.

[00:38:40] Sean: I'm an only child, as well, so my mom and my dad, they got divorced when I was two or earlier. I don't know. There was a time there where they were doing split custody. And my dad finally got custody or fought to get full custody.

[00:39:00] He says when he found out that my mom and I were living in like homeless shelters, he fought to get custody. So all of this in my mind, I'm thinking of context of the Silly Cannonballs documentary, and I had a conversation with my dad about the way that he parented me, right? So that's what's happening in my mind.

[00:39:21] I'll explain that in two seconds. But the context of my life is that as an only child and as a single father, there were a lot of things that happened on a relationship scale that has set me up here and now in my thirties, having children of my own, to just do things kind of wrong, right? My dad was pretty angry, right?

[00:39:50] How could you not be?

[00:39:52] Michael: Yep.

[00:39:53] Sean: Being a single dad, right? Being a torn apart from a marriage, right? I don't think they had a great marriage. But, you know, you're doing this thing alone from, you know, for 16 years, right? And I didn't move out until I was like 25, so 23 years, dude put a lot of work in. But I remember him being pretty angry.

[00:40:21] And you know what, what I knew or what I thought or what I felt is the best word, is that my dad showed up in every physical way that I ever needed. You know, bought me, provided everything that I needed, even wanted, you know. If I needed to be picked up from somewhere that I wasn't supposed to be, he would show up.

[00:40:48] He was there physically, but emotionally he wasn't there. My mom, you know, I had visitation rights until I was about, well, I had visit, I would visit her every weekend, every other weekend or something like that. And then she moved to Florida when I was about 10 and it was junior year of high school was the last time that I saw her in person. And then the last time I talked to her was about 10, five years after that. And she just said some really disgusting things my entire life. She was sick. But so from that side of things, like I wasn't getting this parental figure. On my dad's side of things, I wasn't getting the full parental figure. And so, now, to land this plane, here I am in my thirties trying to shoot up some children of my own and doing it in a way that is imperfect. But I desire, I've always had this desire to give my kids what I didn't have when I was younger, right? I think all of us have that desire. But the way that I was parented, the way that I, my dad didn't show up for me, the way that my mom didn't show up for me, I wanted to make sure I was doing that for my kids. And my son, my daughter, at you know, right now, she's a year and a half, but a lot of this idea for ROAR came when it was just my son. I would reflect on the ways that I was falling short as a dad. And so it started with how do I fix that for myself because I don't wanna do this to him. I don't wanna be angry. I don't wanna blow up. I don't wanna scare him. I don't wanna put him in positions where he's, you know, traumatized for lack of a better word.

[00:42:54] So I had to work on myself. And then after that, it was like, oh, okay, well, how can I just use this story as a way to impact somebody who might be going through a similar situation, right? How can I do for somebody else what I needed when? And so this documentary was more of an exploration in that.

[00:43:17] Now, I didn't start the doc for a really long time because I knew if I didn't tell my dad the way that I thought about him, that I would be throwing him under the bus.

[00:43:25] Michael: Yep. Yep.

[00:43:27] Sean: And so I, you know, the first thing that I did as a part of the Silly Cannonballs documentary is that I interviewed my dad and I got to tell him, hey, like, you showed up for me in every physical way possible, but emotionally, I just felt lost. I didn't feel like you were there. And it was a really powerful conversation. I'm even feeling it now, like I remember this weight just exiting my body. And, and yeah, and to be able to have this honest conversation with my dad, with this man that raised me, and for him to fill in a lot of gaps of life that I don't remember, that I don't recollect, it was just fascinating. And so the engine behind ROAR is really, how can I use the things that maybe I've been through, or maybe that I've witnessed or experienced, and be the first through the brick wall

[00:44:40] Michael: Yep.

[00:44:40] Sean: So dads can have something to lean on. You know, I don't know what the work is gonna do. I don't know what the project is gonna do, but I feel a bit of a calling, a bit of a duty, a bit of a desire to, to tell that story because I, think if I had something like that, things would be a little bit different. Maybe not, I dunno, but I think this is at least edifying in that way. And then, you know, creative process for actually doing it, I think, it really hinged on me being able to have that first conversation with my dad, being able to tell him like, Hey, this is what happened.

[00:45:27] Michael: Yep.

[00:45:28] Sean: Because before that, like I had all these ideas of like, I can do this, I can do this.

[00:45:32] But it always felt gross. It always felt a little bit sticky because I didn't wanna throw him under the bus.

[00:45:37] Michael: Right.

[00:45:39] Sean: Now, the creative process, now that I've had that conversation, it's really just a way of approaching a lot of the different, 'cause I'm, more of a documentary filmmaker, so we did a lot of commercial docs.

[00:45:55] It's really tethered to that same philosophy. It's different doing it for myself because I'm trying to ask myself questions and lead myself and guide myself. But I'm thinking of the ways that I parent, I'm thinking of the ways that or I react in my parenting. One of them is anger, right?

[00:46:15] Michael: Yep.

[00:46:17] Sean: What is that? Where does that come from? Why is that there? How can I fix it? How can I use it? Anger's not all bad. It's not bad. The way you wield it can be bad. So that's one that I've been thinking about, or that's, one that I started the documentary. The other one is shame. Like as a person, as a dad, as a man, I have felt shame my entire life.

[00:46:44] I've been blown up by shame. It's really, it was like, I guess the most honest form of that is I felt like a piece of my entire life in various ways, in various forms. And so what, where did that come from?

[00:47:01] Michael: Yep.

[00:47:01] Sean: And what's the antithesis to that? And so my, my direction with the documentary is threefold. It's one, how to be a dad. Two, how to be a son.

[00:47:16] And three, how to know God as dad or as father, because I think in all three of those areas there's something to be gleaned.

[00:47:26] There's something really powerful to be experienced. And I don't know, I'm just learning a lot about all three, and, you know, how can I dive into that story a little bit more in detail and see how it impacts somebody else.

[00:47:46] Michael: That's incredible. First, I'm sorry you have gone through those experiences, right, when you were younger, like no child should feel like they didn't have the resources on the emotional side to support them as they, they grew up. Like you said that you had, your dad was there for you physically, and that is

[00:48:06] Sean: Yeah.

[00:48:06] Michael: commendable.

[00:48:07] Sean: Yeah.

[00:48:08] Michael: But you didn't have everything that you really needed as a child,

[00:48:11] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:12] Michael: but you could have gone in a couple directions with that as you grew up, right, and you're taking this, what wasn't perfect, was a challenging childhood, would it be fair to say it was challenging at times?

[00:48:25] Sean: Fair?

[00:48:25] Michael: Yeah.

[00:48:26] Sean: Yeah. That's very fair.

[00:48:29] Michael: You took this challenge, something that was quite negative and you're turning it into something positive and useful for the whole, for a lot of people, right? You're telling a story that is going to

[00:48:43] Sean: help

[00:48:43] Michael: dads become or recognize that they mean something and that what they do and how they show up for their family matters.

[00:48:58] And, the fact that you're exploring that and the challenges to get to that stage, you know, you said, that ROAR is for dads who feel like they fell through the cracks,

[00:49:13] Sean: Yeah.

[00:49:13] Michael: Right? And by the, this documentary, this Silly Cannonballs is like, it's a way for those dads that fell through the cracks to be heard, to be recognized,

[00:49:27] Sean: Yeah.

[00:49:28] Michael: to be like, yeah, you're not alone in doing this. And let's be honest, every dad falls through the cracks at some point, right?

[00:49:34] Sean: Absolutely.

[00:49:35] Michael: Like you said, there's no perfect dad.

[00:49:36] Sean: Absolutely.

[00:49:37] Michael: Right? So everybody has their challenges as a father.

[00:49:41] Sean: Yeah.

[00:49:41] Michael: Some are great providers in some ways, and not great providers in other ways, right? They might be physically there, but they might not be emotionally there.

[00:49:48] Sean: Right.

[00:49:48] Michael: They might be emotionally there, but not physically there.

[00:49:50] They might, you know, have more time to give, they might have less time to give. So every dad has their ups and downs.

[00:49:56] Sean: Yep.

[00:49:57] Michael: And what's most interesting to me is that you are, you're leveraging your experience to help others.

[00:50:06] And, yeah, you could have just been like, that was a dark time in my life. And you could keep it, you can internalize it, you can forget about it, you can bury it, whatever, or you can make something of it.

[00:50:19] Right.

[00:50:19] And I just think that's so interesting. It's so commendable that you've taken this negativity and turn it into something

[00:50:27] Sean: hmm.

[00:50:27] Michael: so positive. So I'm very interested, very excited for when you do complete this documentary. Do you have a timeline for when you think you're going to complete the documentary?

[00:50:37] Sean: Right, I mean, at the recording of this podcast, I'm just waiting for, my buddy's supposed to fly in for Thanksgiving, and when he does that'll be the last guest interview that I do for it. And then from there it's just me talking to the camera and, kind of, I have some ideas of doing, doing some different things that might take a little bit of time, but hopefully by spring there's a, a first version, first draft. And then I, like my hope would be like April, May next year to have it finished. All of that is on, you know, the back of work, on the back of if it can be funded, you know, on the back of if my friend is able to get out here for Thanksgiving with his family of four.

[00:51:32] So there's a lot of things that I can't control. And it's a, it's not necessarily a linear process, but the way that I want to, the way that I want to do it is to make sure that I have all of the ideas 'cause I'm, I interviewed my dad, I interviewed my best friend Krista, and then I'm interviewing my best friend Joel.

[00:51:55] They all know me. They all know my past, and so I want to get their takes on some of these things before I go in and, and talk about my perspective. And I think it's giving me a lot of time to, to digest some of the stuff anyways, so it's a little open-ended, but, you know, deadline, like, I'd love it.

[00:52:17] I'd love it to be out sometime next May. May, April, May. We'll see. We'll see if that happens.

[00:52:25] Michael: Sounds great. Well keep us posted 'cause we certainly wanna watch that.

[00:52:29] Sean: Yeah.

[00:52:30] Michael: Alright, I'm gonna kind of flip the mood here a little bit. I wanna move on to our speed round,

[00:52:36] Sean: Yeah.

[00:52:37] Michael: before we have to go. So like last time, five questions. I've changed the questions.

[00:52:43] Sean: Sweet.

[00:52:43] Michael: Five quick questions. They have nothing to do with anything but let's see where we go with this.

[00:52:49] Sean: Yeah.

[00:52:49] Michael: Alright, first question. If you could swap jobs with any cartoon dad for a week, who would it be?

[00:52:54] Sean: Do I know any jobs of cartoon dads? You know, the first person that came to mind is The Jetsons. And so that dude just doing, I mean, he had a desk job, but he was in the future, and he was zooming around on stuff. So I think that would probably be, that'd be the first one.

[00:53:12] Michael: Right. Just for the commute, right?

[00:53:14] Sean: Just for the commute, man.

[00:53:16] Beam me up, Scotty.

[00:53:18] Michael: That's the probably the first time anyone's picked a job just for the commute.

[00:53:21] Sean: Yeah, that's, I like to drive so that, that's, that fits.

[00:53:26] Michael: Yeah. All right. Next question. What's the most questionable thing you've ever MacGyvered together?

[00:53:33] Sean: My entire life. Yeah. What is the most questionable thing that I've MacGyvered? These are good. I probably should have reviewed. I tend to be pretty crafty, so, maybe, a lot of it is like on set. Like there's a lot of things that happen on set where it's just, you wouldn't un-, like I used a pillow once as a as a shade for the camera, which may be not very impressive, but you know, there's a lot of things that happen on set where you're just like, I'm gonna tape this to this, and then I'm gonna swing it from that, and we'll see if it stands up for an hour and a half.

[00:54:12] And there's people underneath it. So that's, questionable. So.

[00:54:16] Michael: Fair enough. All right. If your life had a soundtrack, what would be the opening track?

[00:54:21] Sean: Yeah. Something from John Mayer for sure. Yeah, I think it would just be an amalgamation of John Mayer songs.

[00:54:27] Michael: Okay. Fair enough. What hobby or skill would you love to wake up to and be instantly great at?

[00:54:34] Sean: Ah, joinery, man.

[00:54:36] Michael: Really?

[00:54:36] Sean: Yeah. Japanese joinery is just,

[00:54:40] Michael: Yep.

[00:54:41] Sean: yeah.

[00:54:43] Michael: That's a good answer. All right, last one. What's one item in your house that your kids think is boring but you secretly love?

[00:54:50] Sean: Watching hockey. They love the tv, but watching a game is, you know, and they're too young at this point, so,

[00:54:59] Michael: Right.

[00:55:01] Sean: Yeah, that's, I think that's the good stuff.

[00:55:04] Michael: Yes, I'm with you on that one.

[00:55:06] Sean: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:07] Michael: All right, well I, appreciate that, Sean. Before we wrap up, where can people follow your work with ROAR and keep up with Silly Cannonballs?

[00:55:13] Sean: Yeah. ROARdads.com spelled exactly how it sounds. And then I, you know, I don't have any socials, but LinkedIn is a place that I tend to frequent here and there. So I'll probably update stuff on that, but I'm doing most all of my updates on this through the newsletter. And you can sign up on ROARdads.com/silly or just, you know, there's links all over the place on ROARdads.com, so yeah.

[00:55:44] Michael: And you could check out the cool trailer, right?

[00:55:46] Sean: Yeah. Check out the cool trailer. Yeah.

[00:55:48] Michael: Awesome. Well, Sean, thanks again for taking the time and for bringing so much heart to these conversations. It's rare to talk about creativity and purpose and fatherhood all in the same breath, and you do it with such clarity and honesty, and you don't really hold back, so, I, I really appreciate that. So thank you again. And for everyone out there, if you missed part one of our conversation, go back and listen to it. It's so good. And then check out what Sean's building at ROARdads.com and keep an eye out, hopefully next spring for Silly Cannonballs, his new documentary about fatherhood. And finally, if you're dad listening to this and trying to figure out what comes next, maybe you're in between jobs, starting something new, or just looking for more meaning in your work, head to gaptogig.com, and subscribe to the Gap to Gig Newsletter. And if you took something valuable from this episode, send it to a dad you think could also benefit. Until next time, I'm Michael Jacobs, and this is Gap to Gig, where we're building work that fits life, not the other way around. ​