In this powerful episode, Jeff Ross is joined by Fathers for Change founder Patrick Nugent, a father of three who’s redefining what it means to be a man in today’s world. From the chaos of his 20s to a quiet spiritual shift in China as a first-time dad, Patrick shares his journey of identity, depression, masculinity, and the launch of a movement that now supports countless fathers across Australia. This is one of the realest conversations we’ve had yet on HeroMakers. If you're a dad, husband, or man navigating purpose—this one’s for you.
In this powerful episode, Jeff Ross is joined by Fathers for Change founder Patrick Nugent, a father of three who’s redefining what it means to be a man in today’s world. From the chaos of his 20s to a quiet spiritual shift in China as a first-time dad, Patrick shares his journey of identity, depression, masculinity, and the launch of a movement that now supports countless fathers across Australia.
This is one of the realest conversations we’ve had yet on HeroMakers. If you're a dad, husband, or man navigating purpose—this one’s for you.
Jeff Ross (02:49) Well, welcome legends to our season three of the Laptop Lifestyle Dads show. This is the hero maker season. So this season we're shifting gears. You know, we're done with just learning tools. know, sure we'll still cover AI and social selling and content marketing and funnels and, you know, attraction marketing and all that gear. But this is time for us to level up. This is time for us to go deeper. You know, here we're exploring what it means to lead from identity.
to build not just businesses, but build people, build movements, to find the voice inside you, then to raise up others and to help them to find theirs. Hero makers aren't born in the spotlight. They're forged in the trenches of sacrifice, consistency, courage, and love. They help make leaders who make other leaders. They help pass the mic on.
They helped to build legacy. So if you're ready to step up to rise beyond the hustle, beyond the noise, beyond just making profit and build something that endures, well, welcome. You're exactly where you need to be. And today's guest, I've got Patrick Nugent here with me. We just had some fun with a little bit of a tech issues there on Riverside. Then we jumped over to StreamYard. It wasn't working for us. So we've come back to good old trusty Zoom.
So Patrick, it's good to meet you, mate. I'd like to just dive in and start here if this is okay. do a quick little introduction, but then let's dive in and share your story. So Patrick, what's your story?
I appreciate you having us on Jeff. Thank you very much. And yeah, I love the tech issues. For me, I guess my quick story is that I'm a father of three young boys living on the Sunshine Coast in a beautiful little place called BOR in the hinterlands. For me personally, I just love, I guess, all things development, all things I'm curious about life, especially men's mental health and
Obviously just being the cornerstone or the pillar for my boys to be able to understand, guess, what healthy masculinity is. It wasn't always like that. I was definitely one of your run about kids. was one of your run about teenagers. I was the party goer, the attention seeker, kind of the one that always wanted to just sort of be in the limelight, as you mentioned, but for the wrong reasons. And in a nutshell, obviously,
life always has funny ways of showing you where you want to be without actually understanding it at the time consciously. And for me, I guess probably a huge pivotal time in my life is, when you become a father, you know, it's nothing that any man can prepare for. But obviously becoming a father to three young boys has taught me many lessons in my life up until this point of chatting with you today.
⁓ none more than, guess, ⁓ humility and, sort of the humbleness of a life, ⁓ of the past, you know, that sort of that ego death and rebirth, ⁓ and just shifting perspectives and what really matters in life and, and how we show up, not just for ourselves, but for our families, for the community, for our colleagues, our friends, the next generation. ⁓ and yeah, I've, I've had many beautiful lessons up until this point and I've achieved many, ⁓ beautiful things, but.
I think when all is said and done and I look back at it, nothing more than fatherhood will probably top those. Yeah, Tyler relate to that. You got three boys, so do I. So how old are your boys?
Mine, didn't plan it this way, but I love symmetry. There were nine, six and three. Wow. So, even three years apart. Yeah. Mine are 13, 12 and nine now. ⁓ life is full. Three boys at home, right? It's very full. It's of love, full of adventure. You know, and so you talk about, I love the term you used, healthy masculinity.
What does that look like as a father, you know, raising three amazing boys?
Yeah, great question. For me, guess it's probably...
there's a lot of polarity in it because there's a lot of times where, you know, I do walk the talk and then there's other times where I'll admit I've dropped the ball on countless occasions. And then I look myself in the mirror and go, well, if I'm trying to promote this, not just within my home front, but obviously in my communities that I run in that, like you got to shine light back on yourself quite a lot as a father, you've really got to sit there and face off with the hard truths and healthy masculinity for me is not to, I guess,
perpetrate this whole facade of, know, money makes you titles make you status make you they are all great things that can help to get you ahead of life, obviously, but it's what you do with that the matters the most. You know, you know, if we we get the job, if we get all the money, if we get all that, that's great. But what are you going to do with it? What are you going to how are you going to, you know, use that to your benefit and not just that, but also, I guess.
looking inwards as well. My boys are, my two oldest boys are kind of at that stage now where they can understand what life is about and sort of start to understand who they are as individuals. And they're still very curious and understanding that, but I guess it's my job to start leading that path and leading by example in getting them to understand that they need to be their own unique selves. They don't need to follow the herd. They don't need to follow the pack and giving them a chance to really stand on their own two feet and
and question the world, question who they are, question their own motives and what they do in the world. And also stand on their own two feet and back themselves, not be that person that is adorned that or gets walked over in a healthy way, standing your ground, staying in your own values, but also even getting them to understand what that is. Sometimes I probably, and this has been the biggest lesson is I probably try and impart too much wisdom on them.
And then I also need to understand they're nine and six. They're just kids. And they still just get to be kids. They get to play up and be stupid and make mistakes and not understand the world or not take a lesson out of it. Because you know what? At nine and six, I wasn't sitting there going, I wonder what the inner workings of my brain are because I did the wrong thing and I didn't put my washing away or. No, you just didn't do it. Like, you know, so it's a very hard.
space to sometimes navigate as a father. It's an interesting dynamic. And, know, I look at our boys, especially my oldest, you know, 13 and, know, I've got to stop and forget sometimes he's just a kid because he's more mature than a lot of 20 year olds that I know in that space. Like we have traveled the world with our kids and, you know, and made sure that there is a deep connection as a father and son in that space. ⁓ You know, so some of the things that have helped us to thrive in that one. I want to come back around to that.
But I also want to, I want to dig into why fathers for change, like no father left behind. Like what was the big thing that really sparked you to step up and start, you know, this whole conversation around fathers for change. I suppose what was the catalyst moment in your life that said, right, I've got to do this. If not me, who, you know, I look at my life.
And I look at my early twenties, I look at my early thirties, it very much was the ego driven. was the pride driven. was the keep up with the Joneses, you know, top sort of conversation. You know, look at me, look at me. And then I had to have a few hard truths and a few, you know, few things to stop me in my tracks to, to reevaluate myself and go deep into that messy transformational space and take a lot of ownership and accountability and responsibility for my own actions.
⁓ and, how I could be a better father, how I could be a better husband, how I could be a better man for society around the world. And, you know, it, had to be humbled. I had to have a lot of things in my journey that really humbled me on that space. And I'm sure you've got similar stories in there that have done the same thing by the sound of it. So what was that journey like? And obviously the, the end result of your journey is, starting fathers for change. So what was that catalyst moment?
that pulled you up and said, I've got to do this. I've got to start fathers for change. Yeah, I've spoken in this journey a lot of times already. And I think it gets deeper and more emotional each time that I sit with it and I reflect on it. You hit on a very good point there, Jeff, earlier on in my early 20s to mid 20s. I was always the joker.
the guy that everyone knew that was just wanting all the attention, forefront. And I was always searching for more, but I thought that I would find that in just being social, being out there, being the joker, the laugher, the one that made everyone happy and smiling, but deep down it was very surface level. It was very surface level. I was almost running away from...
something I didn't even know existed or was needed in my life, which was, you know, more maturity, more depth, more understanding of who I was and where I wanted to be. I was just out there partying and having fun and just being reckless, basically, with my weekends, years, everything. that part of me, that part of me defined who I was. So like, to be honest, I actually, I never look back on that and regret it. Because without that, I wouldn't be who I am now. It sounds cliche, but it's always that growth that we look inwards on.
For me, probably the journey started the moment that I decided to shift from where I used to live in my old life, back up in the mines. So was in the mines, I was in that community of rugby league, mining, very blokey bloke, blue collar environments. And again, it was very much derogatory, of ⁓ speaking and a lot of the blokes just didn't really, I could see they weren't going anywhere. And weirdly enough, when I decided to make the move,
down to the Sunshine Coast, my whole life changed. I met my now wife down here, like a year or two later. And then I decided probably something that no real sort of mid 20 year old would ever think of at the time, but I took a chance on love, which sounds very cheesy, but ⁓ I'd known my now wife for one year at the time. And she was moving overseas to China.
And I actually decided at that point that I was going to move with her. I had no job. My parents weren't going to be there, support networks. I didn't know the language, nothing. And I just decided to go on a whim that it felt like the right thing to do. Fast forward another year, we'd only known each other for about a year and a half. We were engaged, married, and actually had our first child over in China. ⁓ Which for me was one of the most, again, humbling, but very
interesting experiences of my life. The reason why I had no one around me. was a first time father and it wasn't actually expected at the time like we were planning, but it sort of was a bit more of a surprise. And at that point I got very, very introverted because I didn't have any support network. And I was a stay at home dad living in a foreign country where I know no one. For me, I guess what happened in that period was something that I wasn't ready for.
⁓ I started to go into somewhat of a spiral. ⁓ I loved it. I was, I was so emotionally invested in my boy, but I was just, I was lost. when, when we came back three years fast forwarding to Australia, pre China, I had a great group of mates, but they were mates that were just surface level mates. When I look back on it now, guys that were living for the weekend, guys that were not.
didn't really have any other ambition outside of their nine to five. And look, honestly, nothing wrong with that. I never said or judged them after I came back. Very much the work hard, play hard sort of mantra and motto, right? As I've been there, done that. Yep. I understand. Yeah, exactly. Living for the weekend, paycheck to paycheck, loving life, but that was it. And when I got back, I had this whole new perspective on life that bit, I'm a dad now. Like I'm living after another human being. Like I've got a lot of responsibility.
But I noticed that the mates that I did have at one point no longer fit into my circle. They never, they didn't reach out. I didn't reach out to them and we just drifted apart. And you know, from that point, I again, spiraled further down. I started to become really depressed. I started to have thoughts of, know, what have I done with my life? You know, this is the wrong thing. I shouldn't have had a kid. I'm not ready. Am I going to be a good father?
Like, can I even provide for another human if I can't even provide for myself? Like, what the hell have I done? And I started to reach out and look for like men's groups, just in general, like to see if there was something out there for me that was more than just drinking and partying. And I found a few responses and I started hanging out in these groups and I started to like it. I was like, Hey, this is kind of cool. People are got a bit of ambition. They want to look around and there's this thing called breath work and meditation. never heard of it. ⁓ I'm like, cool. I might start looking into these things and
That was great for about a year or two. And then that collapsed. The gentleman that was running it, ⁓ a great mentor of mine, Blaise Gruner, was here on the coast, runs a lot of men's stuff. He went a different direction. And at that point I was like, cool, during this period, I loved it. I was lit up every time coming and being surrounded by men that just wanted more out of life. They wanted to be a version of something bigger than themselves, but there wasn't anything left. And I was like, you know,
Why can't fathers have this? you I have no mates that are anyone else other than, you know, just these guys, but now they're not here anymore. I need to find some mates. Like, you know, I always put it back to that analogy of when you're in the school yard and you were younger and you know, you're trying to make friends and it's really awkward. You walk up and you're like, will you be my best friend? like, then you're like, no. And you're like, you know, all like sad and sitting off to the side. Right. And it gets harder as you get older too, right? It gets really hard.
Absolutely. I don't think there's anything scarier in my life than obviously as a grown man asking somebody else to be your mate. That sense of rejection or that sense of fear of rejection from, you know, maybe when you're young, comes back up. Patrick, I'm going to jump in right here right now because I feel like this is a really awesome question to ask, mate. We've got so much in common. It's unfunny. It's not funny. And we'll have to dig into that one day. But mate, will you be my mate? Absolutely, I will. I love that.
See, as you get into this space, it does get a little bit easier because you get out of your own ego and your own pride, but, ⁓ it's not easy to start with, especially as a bloke here in Australia. think Australian, the, the, tall poppy syndrome, the, you know, the toxic masculinity, the derogatory sort of communities as men grow up in, you know, I grew up in the same environment. I left home at 14 and you know, I got into the real rodeo, you know, sort of cycles in that space. And then.
got into the real tradies, you know, space as well. So it's, it's an interesting environment to grow up as a young man in Australia and, and, very, very superficial. So I definitely connect to that, that heart of it all. And I love what you're wanting to do here with Fathers for Change and, and, and bring back, like bring, just bring back the, the tribal essence of what I think is to be a, a
And I hate to use this word, but I can't think of a better word to be a real man, you know, to a man who's, who's okay with being vulnerable and have the softer side and been okay with being, you know, there and have an empathy and, know, those soft skills, but also at the same time, you know, uh, being the, the protector, being the provider for a family, you know, being in that, that space. And I can, think of a better way to just bring it back to that tribal essence.
of, you know, that that hunter gatherer days where men played a role as real men in that space, not this toxic sort of masculinity. And so I want to dig into this a little bit, because I believe that the issues that we have in today's world are bred from individualism, consumerism and idolatry, you know, in that space. So when you when you have these
these essence in part of in our culture, it can't help but breed, you know, division and toxicity and hate and that space, right? Because it all just breeds that us versus them mentality. And I can see that the transformational journey that you've gone through that, you know, that I've personally gone through that I know just about every other, you know, man that I've spoken to in this space as a father has gone through in today's world.
You know, in this space, we have to get out of our own way. We have to learn how to fall in love with ourselves and fall in love with somebody bigger than ourselves. And essentially then learn to fall in love with other community, like our neighbors ⁓ in that space. And that takes a ⁓ very messy, hard, know, internal transformational journey to figure out a few things along the way in that space.
But then when you do figure it out, this is what Joseph Campbell talks about in his hero journey concept in his book, the hero's journey. When you do figure this out and you just have a heart to want to now go serve the greater good, know, serve the community and in that space, maturity happens in participation to that service. Can you describe what sort of happened in your journey and the, and the wisdom that you've picked up along that space?
and unpack that a bit deeper from your perspective.
Yeah, look, to be honest, I think that ⁓ to continue on from previously before, think probably when I first picked up the idea of creating fathers for change, it was still just an idea of like more of a social catch up to be able to connect and make mates with dads. What I very quickly began to learn was that there are so many men out there, so many fathers that were still out there that were hurting. So many men and fathers out there that
just didn't even know this existed or weren't open to this opportunity based upon their own emotional wounding, their own limiting beliefs, whatever it may be. And like, I can't speak for them, but this is through my own personal experience. And you hit on a really good point is that when we are in these spaces and we're facilitating or whatever you want to label it as, you when you, there's that saying when you teach, you get to learn twice. And for me, I think it's an amazing thing that
I've grown so much as an individual over the last five years. If, you know, I look back on my time and I'm like, I'm no longer the person I was five years ago, four years ago, three years ago, two years ago, one year ago. I've constantly been evolving as I've moved into this space and seeing, I guess the challenges that I've faced every time I've gone through another year has really allowed me to understand just how much.
I guess growth that I've brought not only to the space, but to myself, to my family, to the community, everyone, like you mentioned, I've had countless times where I wanted to throw it in. Yeah, of course. Like countless times where I didn't think that the value was there, that I'm basically pushing. Right. If you hadn't told me that, you know, you didn't want to throw it in, you'd be essentially bullshitting and you lie about everything else as well. So I get that. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
And look, one thing that I've probably noticed more than enough ⁓ in my journey to the five years, you mentioned about the whole thing with, you know, men and the paradigm of like, know, sort of still needing to understand themselves or, you know, the consumerism and all that type of stuff. One thing that, and you know, this might be going off topic a little bit, but one thing I've noticed, and it's very interesting to still see even to this day with how much more widely accepted men's mental health movements are or communities or growth and
being vulnerable and sharing and opening up and crying in front of your kids and whatever it looks like, even to this day, I still find that there's a resistance there from men, even when I share these spaces. What I find refreshing is though, that as a ripple effect of sharing it and maybe not having that impact initially with the men, is that those around them are seeing the value in it. Those around them, like their partners, their wives, their friends, their colleagues,
Perfect Strangers, ⁓ when I promote what I do out to the community, I'd say largely around 90 % of it is actually not from the men that actually suggest the men to do it. And I still find that extremely interesting that as men, we still have that sort of, you know, that childlike, you know, sort of worry of what people are gonna think or, you know, we're sort of like, you know, we're caught in our own trap of a mind and
Don't get me wrong. There is that invisible growth that I, that I do see quite a lot where I might have a random guy or a father that three years down the track will come to his first meetup. Yeah. Yeah. Two years down the track will send me a random message. That's what I call the silent stalkers, right? You know, I've been in this online space for about 17 years now, and I've seen so many people who have, they've never interacted on a comment. They've never engaged on a post. They've just watched you from afar.
until they get to a point in their life where something happens, whatever it is, and there's a, it's no longer just a want or an urge or a yearning. It's a need. And so like, and then they reach out and then they take action. And I've seen people take 10 years to make that move, but they watched you from afar in that space. And it's, it's interesting. You know, you talk about this and you touch on this about leading with creating a safe space.
for people to feel heard, seen, valued, known, and essentially loved. know, blokes want to be loved as well, right? We want to be known, we want to be seen, we want to be heard. And that's, I think the biggest thing here in Australia, especially a lot of blokes, I can even think back to my own father, for example, who are a grown, and I think, I think we've got to call it out, right? The, the enemy to this story is the tall poppy syndrome that we face in Australia. You know, it's, it's the thing that's
That's really sort of preventing men from showing their softer side, their more vulnerable side there. You know, they feel like we've got to have the stiff upper lip, you know, the cowboy up type sort of conversation. And you can't show any of this other side is to be weak. And then when other men start to show this other side, then the tall poppy syndrome really kicks in. And, you know, you're essentially persecuted and attacked to make you look even weaker.
And I think that that prevents a lot of men from wanting to even step into this space and that conversation. Do you see that in your end too? Yeah, I was actually gonna lead in with a perfect example, well, two actually that I've seen. I won't name the names for obviously privacy reasons, but there's actually a very sort of influential men's work facilitator in that, lives sort of within the general area.
through a lot of the offerings that he's put out, he obviously promotes quite a lot of retreats and things like that. What I've noticed more than I would, I'm just baffled by it. I'm kind of almost lost for words is that a lot of the times when he's promoted this stuff, you'll find one person will come on there and be the beginner of this tall poppy syndrome. They're basically stoked the fire. There'll be a lot of positivity, a lot of- Yeah, that'll spark the flame for the conversation.
Yeah, there'll be a lot of happiness and support and everything. And there'll be that one person that just literally is afraid for change. Maybe, you know, has been hurt by this before, doesn't have trust in males, whatever it looks like for their own childhood or something that's been triggered in them. And everyone will jump on the back of it literally. And like some of the stuff that I've seen in there is extremely toxic, very derogatory, very like, you know, sort of that shaming nature.
trying to like bring them down to make themselves feel better in that sort of way that they always do that. And it's just, it blows my mind. Because I mean, like quite frankly, even in the work that I've done, I have an example where there was a guy who actually commented on one of my posts and said to me is like, I find it really sad that there's so many of these opportunities out there, but there's none out there for men of my age, a younger bloke. And...
It wasn't so much a hateful comment, but he, I've never received something like that on any of my sort of, ⁓ promotional sort of posts or anything like that. And I took a moment to pause and I'm like, this guy's by this guy. can, I have a feeling like this guy really just needs somebody to listen to him. Yeah. Not attack him, not get their backup, not control. It's still saying you'll see. And I, I sat there for a moment and I responded to him and.
The response I got back was the exact reason why I got into this work and created something like Fathers for Change. He was like, honestly, thank you so much. What I did is I actually removed my ego. He wasn't a father, but I actually mentioned four or five other men's communities on the coast. I tagged them. I self-promoted them. And I said, mate, reach out to any of these. The men would be more than happy to have you along. Honestly, I think these places would...
what you need in your life right now. I love that. And the response he said was like, thank you so much. He's like, honestly, I didn't expect to get a response like that. I've never heard anyone sort of like respond in that way. Honestly, I'm going to check them out next weekend. Love it. Thank you so much. And that's and that's how we make a stand for people. And we you know, we basically stand for well, essentially, this is the hill that we're going to die on.
And, you know, to create that change, to create that transformation, to bring in that positive side of the conversation. And sometimes it just takes us for us for it to take a step back and to get it. And I love that you get out of your own, get out of your own way, get out of your own pride and put them first to bring in the empathy to the conversation. I've had to do that myself on my own journey. I'm loving this conversation. We're going to have to have definitely a part two to this, but you know, if.
Let's just unpack this and I think we'll look at wrapping up and closing on this. You know, in five years time, you know, you're doing what you do. I love what you're doing too. And, ⁓ and you're creating that, that change for fathers. You're bringing in that, that space for no man to be left behind. You know, what would you like to see the world around you? How would you like to see the world transform?
in the next five years? Like what are the impact? What's the legacy sort of conversation that you'd like to bring into and to look at, you know, amplifying and leaving behind when you're no longer here? Yeah, and this is something I've had to sit with a couple of times and I think it's going to change every time I do as we grow. deeper and you get more mature in it. Absolutely. Like at this point in time, I feel like this is the precipice of the next season of my journey. I've just recently now
⁓ launched a second meetup location. So we are expanding, which I think is amazing. Like this has taken a long time for me to be able to actually put together as well. ⁓ And for me, I guess my vision over the next five years is one, obviously to normalize these spaces as just a thing of just today's community. I want to have as many of these around not only the Sunshine Coast, but Queensland, Australia. The vision is huge.
And the reason why I say that is because there's still so many men that either one don't know they exist to are restricted through maybe the location or other means or things like that, that they can't get to these bigger events, maybe that are retreats or things that are of a monetary nature. And I don't think any man should miss out. Yeah. I just don't think, I think every man should be given the opportunity, whether or not they take that on board themselves is a different story.
But like we mentioned in touch base on earlier on, each man will find that space when it's needed the most. Yeah. And for me as a father, when all is said and done, I love this space. I love what it provides. But for me, I guess probably the biggest thing I've sat with is that when all is said and done, the men that I inspire, the men that I reach, the community I reach is amazing. But it's my three boys deep down that I want them to see.
that when they're finished, they've got that sort of, they've got the ability to look back and be like, you know, we were so proud of what dad created. We were so proud of what he was able to achieve. And I want to instill the values and the commitment and the drive and the vision of what I've got in them. Not that I'm wanting them to follow in my footsteps, but I want that to be able to be a stepping stone for how they show up in the world. How they move through things.
Yeah. And I want them to be able to, you know, feel as though they can be, you know, ⁓ a voice or a permission slip for others to follow in that way as well. And I want all the other fathers in the communities around, you know, Queensland, Sunshine Coast, wherever I want to be able to build not just meetups, but I want to have the ability to have spaces where I can connect in with, you know, maybe running local workshops or have online resources or things like that where
For those men that don't feel comfortable to show up in person, they aren't left out either. As I mentioned with my mantra of running this, no father left behind. I don't take that lightly. Like obviously we have a lot of banter, we joke around, we have fun, we out some F bombs, we have a bit of banter, we go to the, go watch a game of footy or whatever, but when all is said and done.
I just want to create something that's far bigger than myself and be part of the bigger picture of the community. And just know that basically I've at least, you know, even if I was to live this world and only touch one father or only make change for one father, I still think that'd be a huge success. But my goals are so much more lofty than that. I want to make sure every father knows that they have a voice, that their voice is worth hearing. And that at the end of the day, no man's
value is more important than others. Like everyone, yeah, every man has a value in this world. And there's just some men that need that little push in the right direction to know that they're, you know, the value is there. So yeah, off the recent experience of something that happened to my life that really made me reflect on things with the passing of a family member, it's really made me reevaluate.
that even the happiest people or even the people you think are doing well in life, you really need to check in more on them. yeah, of course. Look at Robin Williams, one of the world's most comedians of the world. deep down, he was dying and he committed suicide. A lot of men, especially, are very good at putting on a brave face to not let their loved ones see it, to not let that see it. Deep down, they're hurting.
You know, I've got story after story after story where I've lost, you know, quite a few influential men in my life, you know, that space as growing up that, you know, they've committed suicide. And I think that's what you, what you're doing, mate is your, your, it's a beautiful heart to help even prevent that conversation for even starting, but creating that brother ship, creating that mateship, you know, in that space, creating community to help men feel seen, heard, valued, known, and ultimately loved.
you know, at that space. Yeah. And that's the thing for me. Yeah. There's really tough time. Over the last five... Sorry, where you go? I was just going to say over the last five years, you know, for the first four years, I ran the meetups every single weekend for four years straight. And there's been times where I've sat back and looked at it and gone, am I really doing enough? Am I really creating enough value in the community? Is this really enough? Because I've just got very high standards for myself. It's a 2am. But then I look back and I'm like, you know,
there is a lot of men out there that would love to be in this position where they've felt the courage to step into the space and take that leap. also think, yes, it's about service. Yes, it's about other people, but sometimes we as leaders need to mature and grow and go in that space. So sometimes it's just as much for us as it is for them to step up to that plate.
Mate, we're running out of time here. So there's a really great book that I would love you to go read if you haven't read it already. It's by Brene Brown. It's called Atlas of the Heart. And I think that would actually really help strengthen the mission and help you equip you in a more powerful way with everything you're doing. Amazing. I actually love to just give you space here as well. So like if you had the opportunity here to sort of ask for, you know, for one thing, know, ask for support, ask for help or whatever would that be to
to help you to facilitate this conversation, to help you to move the needle forward faster, what would that ask be? What's something that our community could potentially maybe help you out with?
I would think personally, just to quickly touch base on what I mentioned before, I'm one man. I've never thought of Fathers of the Change community as a one man band or a lone wolf pack. ⁓ However, I have found it more challenging than not to be able to actually have enough men or enough fathers in my corner to really grow this space to where I want it to get to. Not because I need it to look a certain way, but because I know that the impact it creates.
So my question out there to the men that listen to this, to the fathers that listen to this is that if you feel called, if you've resonated with what we've spoken into, if you feel like you've wanted to get into a space like this and you would have just been afraid to maybe take that leap or you didn't know it existed, I'd be very happy to have a chat with any man, any father out there that even just wants to know a little bit more about what we do, wants to connect in personally, or wants to maybe take an opportunity on to even open up a new location.
or wants to just help out in some way, shape or form to reach out to me. To jump into our Fathers for Change community online, there's a private online group, maybe jump in there and check it out if you feel like it might be something for you. And just know that it's always gonna be a free space. it's, you know, I don't want, like I said, any man to have to miss out. And if you wanna look into it, just check it out. There's no harm in it. You don't have to be in there trying to share, you know,
and feeling the edges and everything, you can just go in there and be a part of something. Because that's what lot of men or fathers sometimes want. They just want to feel like a part of a tribe or a brotherhood. maybe that's enough sometimes. Yeah, they just want to belong. Absolutely. And if there's any other people out there, whether it's wives, mothers, fathers, husbands, ⁓ whoever it be, the bigger community, if you know of somebody that maybe can't see this, doesn't have social media, isn't into that stuff, let them know about it.
Let them know about what we're doing with Fathers for Change and the movement. And just let them know that if they are ever on the Sunshine Coast or when we expand, come down. You're going to be accepted. You're going to be welcome with open arms. We're not there to freaking judge people or make them feel awkward or question who you are or no. It's every man from every walk of life, every father is welcome. yeah, basically just at the end of the day, to sum it up, please.
just get the message out there for fathers and let's just work towards making more awareness for men's mental health. Love that, mate. And we'll make sure all of those details are in the show notes below. you know, the beauty about these interviews is they're timeless. know, someone could be listening down the road, you know, three years, five years down the road as you grow in that space and still reach out to you. So I love that about this. So guys, thank you very much for tuning in and listening to today's episode with Patrick Mugent.
Make sure that you subscribe to the LaptopLives.Dad Show. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. And this podcast is also proudly brought to you in partnership with the Los Angeles Tribune Podcast Network. So thank you very much for your time, legends. We'll see you on the next episode and bye for now.