226 – Owen Marcus of Nevada City, CA an Executive Coach, Founder of Whole Clinics & Co-Founder of Evryman

Transcript:

Tom Couch: Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast, working tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics’ mission at HorizonTherapeutics.com.

Owen Marcus: Like these guys go away from a meeting and just really reflect on how rewarding it was when Joe spoke that, I could tell him that his talking about his father really touched me and it made me remember my father and brought tears to my eyes. And then Joe hears that and he feels honored by that. And you leave just feeling wow. Yeah, I’m making a big difference in someone’s life by being myself.

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, Owen Marcus, an executive coach and co-founder of EVRYMAN, a global community of men who come together to challenge and assist one another in their personal growth. We’ll hear Owen’s thoughts of being a man in today’s world and how to be the best man you can be. That’s all on this week’s Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Say hello now to our host, David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi, and thanks for listening to The Dad to Dad Podcast, fathers mentoring fathers of children with special needs, presented by the Special Fathers Network.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children connect with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support dads. To find out more, go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we’d be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook.com, groups, and search “dad to dad.”

Tom Couch: Now let’s hear this fascinating conversation between David Hirsch and Owen Marcus.

David Hirsch: I am thrilled to be talking today with Owen Marcus in Nevada City, California, an executive coach, founder of Whole Clinics, a Group Lead Trainer for the Mankind Project, and co-founder of EVRYMAN, a global community of men who come together to challenge and assist one another with their emotional wellbeing and personal growth.

Owen, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network and to discuss the importance of self-care in developing healthy relationships.

Owen Marcus: My honor to be here, David.

David Hirsch: Let’s start with some background. Tell me something about your family.

Owen Marcus: I grew up, born in Vermont. I grew up in the Northeast. I’m the oldest of three kids. My Mother grew up in Vermont. Her father was the only dentist in a small Vermont town. And my father grew up in New York City, Long Island, and I spent 10 years down there in elementary school. And what you guys all might find interesting, I did not have this diagnosis at the time, but later I realized that I had Asperger’s.

I’m soon to be 69. So that phenomenon wasn’t really known of back then. Turned out I also had dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADD. Speech impediment I did know, that was really obvious. So I had that challenge, particularly through elementary school. When we moved to Rochester and I started a new school district and a new school, first junior high then high school, I really decided to change myself and my interaction. Found something I was good at doing and what that was was being a juvenile delinquent in high school [laughing] and leading other guys into doing things that we shouldn’t have been doing. And that sort of set me on a new trajectory and really in some ways was healing for me.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thank you for sharing and I appreciate the authenticity about being a juvenile delinquent. Let’s not have that be the focal point of our conversation, but acknowledge that we’ve probably both done things… Most men, if they’re honest with themselves, have done things that you look back and say, what was I thinking really? But out of curiosity, what was it that your dad did for a living?

Owen Marcus: He was in labor relations and ended up being in industrial relations and was the senior vice president for a company, the third largest company in Rochester at the time, Sybron, where he ran that whole department.

David Hirsch: Okay. When I think of Rochester, Eastman Kodak comes to mind, and I don’t know that I can name the number two company.

Owen Marcus: Oh, you could. Xerox.

David Hirsch: Okay. [laughing] Okay. I know that a lot of the families benefited, who lived in and around Rochester from those big companies like Sybron as well. So I’m curious to know, how would you describe your relationship with your dad?

Owen Marcus: It wasn’t bad, but I came to realize it wasn’t good. He was, I think, a little dyslexic. He was an artist. He wrote with his left hand. He was going to become a physician and a medical illustrator. And then when he was in the Second World War as a medic, he realized he was colorblind, so he had to give up that career and art. So he ended up becoming a very successful painter before he retired.

And so that was an outlet for him, which I think worked for him. But he was very closed emotionally. There was really no outward affection. I knew that he loved me, but I never heard it. I never really felt anything that was demonstrative. And because essentially my whole family, that family and my extended family was not emotional, I didn’t know I was missing that. And so I didn’t know there was such a thing as emotional connection, particularly between men or a son and a father.

David Hirsch: Yeah. You don’t know what you don’t know, is what comes to mind.

Owen Marcus: Exactly.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing. And I’m wondering, when you look back on your relationship with your dad, is there an important takeaway or two, a lesson that comes to mind, you’d said, oh, that’s definitely something I learned from my dad.

Owen Marcus: Yeah, I learned to not be emotionally open, but beyond that, one of the things that always did impress me was his integrity. And even though he didn’t really show it outwardly, his compassion, he was one of the first people to fight for civil rights. That was one of the reasons he enjoyed the job that he had because he was a champion for that. So I respected that. He had an intelligence that was a little different, which I also respected. And then, like I said, getting into his passion, he didn’t completely walk away from it. He decided later in his life that he was gonna pick up painting. And even though he was colorblind and I don’t know how he did it, but he was able to paint.

David Hirsch: My recollection was that you took a BA in psychology from the University of New York college at Plattsburgh, and then you got an MA in health education. And I’m wondering, when you were completing your education, where did you think your career was gonna take you?

Owen Marcus: I was thinking of doing what my father was doing and going to Cornell, which had the IR school, which my father was a lecturer at. So I thought maybe I’ll do that because it logically and somewhat emotionally it made sense to me. But where I ended up, I had no idea what I was gonna do.

David Hirsch: What were your early on careers, or what did you do for a living when you first graduated then?

Owen Marcus: I traveled, I did everything that guys do when they travel. I was a bartender, a desk clerk at a resort, a waiter. And then I ended up in Boulder, Colorado after not being able to find a job in the ski areas in Colorado. And one thing led to another and I became a construction foreman. And that was like working in a penal colony. And that was a real inspiration [laughing] to get serious, go to school, do something. It was like going to prison every day and working 12 hours outside and in the middle of the winter. And so that was a real impetus. And it’s one of those deals where you could say, it’s a prayer, it’s an intent, it’s desperation. And out of the blue, I get invited to do something I never would’ve considered.

David Hirsch: Okay. I’m thinking about the early seeds that were planted in your career, and I’m wondering if some of them were out of some of the challenges that you had made reference to earlier. You mentioned that you were later diagnosed with Asperger’s, but wouldn’t have known that at the time. You also made reference to dyslexia and dyspraxia and having a speech impediment, and I’m wondering if some of those early on experiences, the ostracization that you might have felt or experienced, were some of the foreshadowing for the work that you’ve been doing.

Owen Marcus: I think they were and it trained me in many ways. I’ll give you a few ways. One, it made me really compassionate for people that had struggles and I made a commitment even as a kid not to ever pick on anyone and in fact often defend them.

So that was a start. I didn’t know at the time. Those challenges have given me certain advantages that most guys don’t have. One of ’em is how I think, which is not really set up to do a lot of careers, but it’s been very well set up for the things I did do and what I develop and what I do with people and what I teach other men to do.

In other words, I’m not a good linear thinker. I couldn’t do your job. I’m terrible with numbers, terrible with the audio things from learning languages or even remembering names, but all the things I’ve done in my life, those weren’t important.

David Hirsch: Thank you for your authenticity and I think that it’s important to understand what your strengths and weaknesses are, and not necessarily try to compensate for your weaknesses, but to play to your strengths, leverage those strengths. Because that’s really the way that you’re gonna be able to differentiate yourself and make an impact on the world, at least from a leadership standpoint. That’s what I think. And I’m wondering, was there some meaningful advice that you got early on, as far as something that allowed you to try to figure out what those strengths were?

Owen Marcus: No. I do remember, like right after I got to Boulder, I ended up getting an astrological reading. I never had one. I was skeptical. And I had this woman that I was taking a class from, and she had a PhD in what I can’t remember, but I really liked her and she was a bit of a mentor and I respected her. And she said, oh, her husband is an astrologer. I said, hell, I’ve never done it. I’ll give it a try. So I was a little blown away with how he could read me from just giving him my birth data. So that got my interest and it really got me started on a few things. I wanted to explain some of my challenges and help see how maybe these challenges could be assets.

David Hirsch: Yeah. When you can turn your liabilities into an asset, then you’re really onto something, right? You know that somebody that allows you to see things that maybe were a blind spot or somethings that weren’t quite obvious. And you have to be thankful for people that can do that. In a perfect world, it’s your immediate family, but sometimes that’s not the case. And that sounds like that’s what your situation or experience was. Were there some important decisions you made early on that helped put you on the path that you’re on today?

Owen Marcus: Like I alluded to, it was… And I say this with guys in general, that it’s like, how great does a pain have to be greater than the fear that holds you back?

I had a lot of fear, a lot of tension, a lot of resistance. But as I mentioned, I had a lot of pain working in that penal colony. And then I had a roommate giving up his law practice to come live with us in Boulder to learn how to be a Rolfer, which was this kind of specialized body therapy or soft tissue therapy. And he argued his case so well, he got me to try one session and that’s all it took. So I realized as I got into the whole field that it was like having a prayer answered. I was really desperate. But fortunately I was able to, maybe out of my desperateness, to try something I would’ve been resistant to and would’ve mocked maybe a month earlier.

So I said, all right, what have I got to lose? A little time, a little money? And that’s all it took. And I’ve found the things that have changed my life the most were often the things I resisted the most in the beginning.

David Hirsch: Interesting. So would it be fair to say that this knowledge about being a Rolfer and what’s involved with this body therapy, soft tissue therapy, was a turning point?

Owen Marcus: Yeah, it was a turning point first because immediately when this Rolfer was rolfing me something touched me metaphorically and literally. But I went through the traditional 10 sessions, which was like an hour each. Nine months later, I was an inch taller and 20 pounds lighter, and I was never overweight, so it wasn’t fat. I lost tension. Where I was like, in high school, they wouldn’t let me in a pool because I’d sink. So I lost that density, that tension. And when I lost the physical tension, I lost the analog of the emotional tension because most of that physical tension came as stress or emotional tension from all the challenges I had and the disconnection in my family.

So no severe trauma, but a lot of what I would call microtraumas. So when my body opened up, then my emotions opened up and then there was no looking back.

David Hirsch: Yeah. It’s fascinating. Let’s dig a little bit more into that. You’ve been involved in a lot of things over the last 30 or 40 years, and the one thing that you’ve been doing for a longer period of time is something in the name of OwenMarcus.com, which is your executive coaching. And I’m wondering what was it that got you started in this area and has sustained you for all these years?

Owen Marcus: I started in two ways. One, in my private practice as a Rolfer. And I’m moving down to Phoenix in 1980 and not knowing anyone and not really having any full-time Rolfers here, I created, I was able to create my own… and Rolfing’s own reputation, which was a little hard in the beginning. I had nothing to build on, but good because I was not going up against any bad reputations. And I taught myself how to, within five years to have the largest Rolfing practice in the country. And that ended up being an integrated medical clinic. I worked with my clients and because a lot of psychotherapy or postgraduate training I had, but not being a therapist, a lot of the work I would do with my clients was not just the physical, but the emotional. I would talk to ’em in ways that was often therapeutic. So that was a combination of some might say therapy, I wouldn’t, but coaching. And then I also became a corporate trainer through a couple different companies. And that was something I just did as an aside.

And all that just led me into, particularly once I got into men’s groups 25 years ago, working with men and applying everything I knew, a unique kind of executive coaching where I was working with guys in their relationships. Because we all don’t know how to be successful in relationships. And I say it’s not our fault, it’s just that we don’t have models. We don’t know how to do that. And I was fortunate because I was so messed up with my relationships, I had to hack my way through that. Doing it for myself and studying with some amazing masters that were literally developing new professions, I was able to put together a system that works not only for myself but now for thousands of men.

David Hirsch: Yeah. I’m fascinated by it and my recollection, please correct me if I’m wrong, was that the work that you were doing initially was not male-specific, but it was for men and women.

Owen Marcus: Yeah, it was co-ed.

David Hirsch: It’s not just men that would benefit from this Rolfer experience, but it’s individuals who are open-minded. And I’m wondering, just for the benefit of those that might not be familiar with it, what would that experience look like?

Owen Marcus: Yeah, I get all different kinds of clients, generally adults, but I’ve even had babies I’ve worked on. I had a particular practice working with athletes. Phoenix had a lot of runners. I worked with a lot of elite runners, Olympic runners, generally long-distance ones. Then I worked with professional athletes and the ballet company. And for a lot of people it was about performance, but ultimately it was about a few things: the stress and the tension in their body and how it was impacting them.

For most people, if you ask them six months later, what did you get from it? They go, oh yeah, my physical problems more than healed and I’m performing better than ever. But what I really got was I’m more relaxed, I’m happier, I’m connecting with my wife, my kids more, because when the body is relaxed and downregulated from the stress response, it’s in that parasympathetic or relaxed state where other parts of us are online. Everything from our digestive system to our emotional system. We’re more screwed up by the stress we’ve endured in the vast majority of cases than the physical trauma or injuries, even for the athletes.

David Hirsch: So I’m wondering if there’s a connection with the work that you’ve been doing and the stress, the added stress, that goes along with having a child or in some cases children with special needs.

Owen Marcus: Yeah, I can’t imagine how stressful that is. As we were saying earlier, just men in this culture are under stress number one, more than they often realize or want to feel or can acknowledge or anyone else acknowledgements. And then you add the added stress that you’re much more aware of than I am of special needs and it just compounds it. But also, I think one thing to look at is it compounds a behavioral pattern that we already have that’s not working for us. So it’s like we become right-hand dominant and that right hand or arm gets stronger and stronger, but the left hand gets relatively weaker and weaker. So we don’t develop emotional fluency. We don’t develop our ability to downregulate or relax. We don’t develop all these things which are really quite natural and necessary for the average guy, but the added stress of a special needs, I think it’s even more necessary.

David Hirsch: If I can paraphrase what you’ve said, if you don’t get the fundamentals correct, the added stress of what goes on to have a child or children with special needs is not the root problem, right? It’s just putting more pressure on a weaker frame or foundation. Would that be accurate?

Owen Marcus: Yeah, that’s a beautiful way to say it. You just use your same frame or reference or behavioral pattern even more, and then as you probably see, it starts to show up in the family. Guys act out and then their partner is probably acting out and they start butting heads. And one of the other things that I do is I work with couples because my partner is a couples therapist and we do couples training. So I’m well aware of the stress and I think a lot of us are aware of the stress that COVID put on relationships for two years. So rather than have a relationship that is supportive and creates co-regulation, which is basically relaxation and connection, often with a child with special needs because of the stress and our behavioral patterns, the relationship starts to suffer, and so it goes the other way. The relationship becomes even more stressful rather than helpful.

David Hirsch: So it’s becoming more and more obvious, I think, as we are more well-educated and more well-informed that stress management is critically important. And I’m thinking initially when you’re confronting like a disease, whether it’s cancer or heart disease or something that could be life-threatening, you’d like to do all the things that are within your control — proper diet, proper exercise, taking in the right type of nutrients. And then right behind that is stress management, because stress is only gonna exacerbate whatever the challenge or problems is that you’re having in your life. I’m wondering if there’s one or two, three things that you can suggest that anybody could do, anybody could incorporate into their immediate situation that would be a stress reliever. Is there something that, what I think of as like a low hanging fruit?

Owen Marcus: Yeah, there are. I can list them and I just frame it that often when we think of stress management, we think of it as a top-down phenomenon. Short-term, you might get some results. Long-term is gonna backfire. Cuz one of our operating strategies in this culture, and particularly for men, is a top-down approach.

We think, and I use that word deliberately, that if we understand something we can control or manage it, and that’s gonna help it. But in the long run, it backfires because really what we’re dealing with are two systems: the body and the emotions. It’s like telling a kid that’s acting out to sit down and be quiet. It might work for a while, but then he just acts out even more. Stress reduction is a function of a couple things. One of learning a new behavioral pattern. So that involves being aware of your body. That’s usually the secret to the work I do with EVRYMAN and men is… With myself when I started, if you ask most guys what you feel, they’ll roll their eyes and try to leave the room. They don’t wanna, they don’t go. We’re trained not to go to the emotional. We know that might help our stress and our relationships, but we don’t know how to go there. And when we do, we think we’re doing it wrong. Or someone tells us we’re doing it wrong.

So here’s the secret, particularly for guys: go to your body first. Don’t ask, or if you do ask an emotional question and you don’t get the result that you want like a connection, back up, slow down and help the guy to be aware of his body. So any guy at any moment with some guidance can be aware of his body. So everything from how they’re holding their hand or tapping their foot or subtle things, maybe there’s more color in their face or how they’re breathing. Any cue to your body starts to downregulate your stress. Because one, you’re telling yourself you’re safe if you’re feeling your body.

And then a really simple thing you can do is breathe. So when we’re stressed, we hold our breath and tend to breathe in our upper body or our chest. But as most of us know, with a lot of meditation, they have us focus on breathing in our belly because when you get more breath or more movement in your belly when you breathe, you innately relax.

Tom Couch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments. But first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents Survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey, will receive a Great Dad Coin. Thank you. Now back to the conversation.

David Hirsch: The culmination of all the work that you’ve been doing for decades and decades is what you’re doing today in the name of EVRYMAN. And that was something that you’d co-founded in 2017. And I’m wondering, where did the name come from? I know it’s a little bit of a play on the word “every,” but why did you exclude the second “E”?

Owen Marcus: Because we couldn’t afford the EVERYMAN with the second “E”.

David Hirsch: When you say couldn’t afford the “E”…

Owen Marcus: To buy that URL would’ve been exceedingly expensive.

David Hirsch: [laughing] Okay. That’s as simple as it is. Okay. I thought there might be like, it might stand for something.

Owen Marcus: No. We joke about it. That’s the “E” for emotion that men are missing. But no, that was not the reason.

David Hirsch: When you and your co-founders started this, what was the vision?

Owen Marcus: It congealed as we were doing it, but essentially it was to bring this work that I was talking about to more men. To take what Sandpoint had been perfecting, and now we’re calling Sandpoint the incubator for EVRYMAN, and really put it out to the world and do what we’ve been doing for five years. Keep developing and refining it.

David Hirsch: Gotcha. And what’s the scope of the work?

Owen Marcus: It started out in two ways. We had live events and live groups, and we still do that. Now we’re back to doing live trainings after two years of not doing it with COVID. But we also have a membership, which is online, which is something we’ve always wanted to do. And we do virtual trainings for men, for corporations, for municipal governments.

And so it’s bringing our method, we call it the EVRYMAN method, to men into different institutions, which is some of what I was describing before about getting guys not just in touch with the bodies, but teaching ’em how to utilize that somatic component.

David Hirsch: Gotcha. So you have a great website. I remember doing a little research and I think I noticed three different, what I might call programs. One is referred to as open source retreats were multi-day. One is fundamentals, which is like multi-week. And then there’s something that you refer to as the deep dive or foundations. And I’m wondering if you could enlighten our listeners about each one of those.

Owen Marcus: Yeah, so open source was the first one we did. That’s an introduction. It’s starts Friday night, goes to Sunday late afternoon, and it’s experiential. And our approach is not confrontation. A lot of men’s trainings are very confrontational and based on deprivation, and ours is quite the opposite. We get guys of all different ages, but generally they’re from 30 to probably 70. But we’ve had guys well into their eighties. And we, in different ways from in little groups to a big group to being outside, find all these different ways to get guys connected to themselves or each other and do it in a powerful way while having fun.

And then we have something called the MELT training, which is Men’s Emotional Leadership Training, which is where we get into teaching our skills to guys so they can apply in their profession or often in their men’s group.

And then out of that we have the foundation training, which we’re leading now, which is a six-months training that goes out to be a year, where we really dive into the skills. And we’re teaching it to 32 guys that are literally from all over the world. Everything from therapists to psychiatrists to attorneys to coaches to guys that just are wanting a new career. And we teach ’em how to do this work in a way where they can develop some real high proficiency at it.

The zeitgeist is changing. Cuz like you said, I’ve been doing it a long time. Working with men for 25 years. It was a real outlier back then and now organizations… We’re working with one of the top five tech companies and they came to us because of who we are. And so it’s starting to get really accepted and the media, the institutions are going, we gotta help men. And we can’t just tell ’em what they should do, we gotta help ’em. And so they’re coming to us and they’re coming to others too, because the issue of men… And part of it is high suicide rates and addiction rates are skyrocketing because of the stress and the loneliness that men are experiencing.

And men are listening to it. Before there was a lot of shame or hesitation about doing men’s work or going to a men’s group or men’s training. And now guys that would’ve resisted even a few years ago are knocking on our door and saying, let me in.

David Hirsch: Yeah, I think it’s fabulous and a long time coming and I know that part of the challenge, at least from my own limited knowledge or perspective, is there seem to be like the gender wars that have been taking place over the last generation or two. It’s not either/or. I think we need to move for equal rights. I’m the father of three adult daughters. I wanna make sure that they have all the opportunities that anybody would have. But we don’t wanna leave our boys or our young men behind by thinking, oh, guys have got all the advantages, or they can figure it out on their own.

We’re human beings with a lot of frailty and there’s a lot of fragmentation or uncertainty that exists in all of society and it’s not gender-based. And some work that you do, like you said, is couples-based, but getting guys to pull over and ask for directions when maybe they’re not where they want to be, or sense that something’s not stable or satisfying and to do something about it. If you keep doing the same thing and expect different results, that’s one of the basic definitions of insanity.

So what is it you can change? What is it you can incorporate into your daily routine, like you were saying, that is going to help improve the situation? And if you can work on the foundation of the fundamentals, then you’re better prepared to be the best person you can be.

And as it relates back to what we’re talking about, self-care is the sort of bigger overarching narrative. If we are bringing our A game, however you might define that, to your family, to your spouse, to your children, to the work that you do, to your community, you’re gonna have a greater impact. And not to do that, just to push through things or to compartmentalize things or to bottle things up, sweep the problem under the rug, if you will, is just a recipe for future challenges.

Cuz we can only do things so much on our own. And I think that the power of being effective has to do with being in relationship and being part of a larger community. That’s what I hear you saying.

Owen Marcus: Yeah. And as guys, that’s a hard one for us. And one of the things that we talk about is, there’s been a personal growth movement for, we’ll say 50 years, but what we’re championing is the group growth movement. That we do it as a community. It could be a community of just the men in your group. You grow exponentially in terms of speed and depth when you do it with others and it’s a lot more fun. And something that I didn’t realize and guys often don’t, when you are in a group or in a community like ours, one of the huge benefits, and I think you know, you see this, David, is that when you can help someone by being yourself, not so much by giving advice, that’s fine. But just showing up, being compassionate, being vulnerable, listening to them, being present with them and that presence brings something that they don’t have in their life, that’s hugely rewarding. Like these guys go away from a meeting and just really reflect on how rewarding it was when Joe spoke that, I could tell him that his talking about his father really touched me and it made me remember my father and brought tears to my eyes. And then Joe hears that and he feels honored by that. And you leave just feeling wow. Yeah, I’m making a big difference in someone’s life by being myself.

David Hirsch: Yeah. I love it. So I’m thinking about advice perhaps beyond what we’ve discussed and if there’s anything else that comes to mind.

Owen Marcus: Yeah, there are a couple main things just to review is work with your body to downregulate the tension in your body. A lot of ways to do it, including getting some good body work. That’s the way to cheat. I always like to cheat with things like that. You don’t need to do it alone. And as you said, David, get over the whatever of not asking for help. Join a group, join our organization. Join another organization. You don’t need to do it alone. And we’ve had so many guys in terms of even ex-special forces or special op vets that come to us that really saw a lot of trauma and they realized they don’t need other vets. They just need men to be with. And we don’t know, not only what we don’t know, but we don’t know what we’re missing and we don’t know the impact of what we’re missing, which is this kind of connection, has on us.

David Hirsch: Yeah, thanks. It’s almost like stating the obvious. It’s like a blind spot, at least. I’m thinking about my own situation. I think it’s more like a blind spot and it’s easier for somebody else to point out to you something. And you do have to have the open-mindedness, vulnerability, whatever you wanna call it, to put yourself out there. And I think it’s wonderful. So is there anything else you’d like to say before I wrap up?

Owen Marcus: No. If anyone has any questions, they can contact me through EVRYMAN or my site, OwenMarcus.com. And take a risk and do something for yourself and really for your kids and your relationship, your partner, and invest in your emotional wellness.

David Hirsch: Fabulous. Owen, thank you for your time and many insights. As a reminder, Owen is just one of the dads who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father, or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, please go to 21sCenturyDads.org.

Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads Foundation is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization, which means we need your help to keep our content free to all concerned. Would you please consider making a tax-deductible contribution? I would really appreciate your support. Owen, thanks again.

Owen Marcus: Thank you David, and thank you for your organization.

Tom Couch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support other dads. To find out more, go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook.com, groups, and search “dad to dad.” Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, please send an email to David@21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch.

Thanks again to Horizon Therapeutics who believe that science and compassion must work together to transform lives. That’s why they work tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics at HorizonTherapeutics.com.