Scott Mawdesley wants to inspire dads to heal, grow closer to God, and build meaningful connections. Through leatherworking and contemplative practices, Scott has learned key insights about how to grow as a man and father. In this episode, he shares how those hobbies and intentional habits have helped him lead with purpose, wisdom, and a restful presence.

Key Takeaways

In leatherworking, it takes seven different tools to make one bracelet. The same is true in life: You need multiple imports to intentionally shape the life you want.
If your reaction to a problem is bigger than the problem itself, there’s a gap that needs healing.
Start each year by asking your kids, “Is there one area that I could get better as a dad that would be meaningful to you?”
On March 14, kick off a journey toward deeper spiritual friendship with National Joe with a Bro Day!

Scott Mawdesley

Scott Mawdesley is a social entrepreneur, author, and podcast host with over 33 years of ministry experience at several leading churches. He is the founder of Dads on Tap and the Spiritual Father Program Director at Man in the Mirror Ministries. Scott and his wife, Natalie, have been married for almost 24 years and have a son in college and a daughter in high school.

Key Quotes

17:53 - "The most practical way for us to understand that there's a gap that we're unaware of or need to pay attention to is think back in the last two weeks of your life, whether it's with your wife or your kids or at work or in your community, wherever it might be. When was there a time when your reaction to the issue at hand was bigger than the issue at hand? If there was, you have a gap, whether you're aware of it or not. There are two steps to healing and a soul at rest. First one is revealed. So John revealed to me I had a gap, I began to explore that. What we often do is we often think revealed is enough. Reveal feels really good because, I've never knew this before, I never saw this. What we tend to do is go, okay, I'm good. The second step is healed. So, once it's revealed, there's a process necessary. For me, it happened be six years because there was quite a bit of trauma to get to a place of being healed. That one question is kind of what revealed that stuff to me. And then we took that healing journey."
41:37 - "Oftentimes there's the dream we have that I believe God's given us and then there's the reality of how we're actually living. What we often do as men is we often try to gut it out. What we say to ourselves is just try harder. But then we end up in the same patterns, the same issues. I lived in frustration for many years until, until the journey of, of healing took me to a place where I realized that those things I'm struggling with are just the symptom. No good doctor ever just deals with the symptoms, they figure out the underlying causes. What I realized was as I took my focus off of the symptoms, I began to dig into those underlying causes. What I discovered was that with the healing of brothers and with the healing of the Holy Spirit and with the healing of some mentors, I was able to live into the dream God had for me, by doing that deeper work in my life. And I would just say, dads, if there's something you're struggling with, you can't figure out how to get beyond, don't invest too much time trying to gut it out and figure it out on your own or just try harder."

Links from Today’s Conversation

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Dads On Tap
A Dad's Bible Journey: The Torah by Scott D. Mawdesley
Man in the Mirror — Spiritual Fathers
Joe With a Bro

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