306 – Marc Moschetto of Holly Springs, NC CEO of Kick Motor, Host of The Rational Workforce Podcast & Father of Three

Transcript:

Tom Couch: [00:00:00] 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.

Marc Moschetto: It’s one of those things, you just love your kid and you’re getting ready to send them out into Big Boy Land. And you know how cruel kids can be. It’s so easy to get bought into the fear. And when he ever came home that day and told us about how amazing his day was and how excited he is, and that hasn’t slowed down, ever since, legitimate tears of joy and deep cleansing breaths. Maybe a glass of champagne once they all went to bed to celebrate. [David chuckling]

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, Marc Moschetto, a business consultant, a neurodiversity advocate, and host of the successful podcast, The Rational Workforce. Marc and his wife, Kate, are parents to three children who have experienced various challenges while growing up. We’ll hear Marc’s story on this Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Now say hello to the founder of the Special Fathers Network and host of the Dad to Dad Podcast, [00:01:00] David Hirsch.

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

David Hirsch: The Special Fathers Network MasterMind Group experience is the most comprehensive program the 21st Century Dads Foundation offers. Dads raising children with special needs meet virtually on a weekly basis and form meaningful relationships while sharing weekly wins, discussing books, and sharing heartfelt challenges. One of the highlights of the year is attending an in-person weekend retreat. We’re launching 10 new MasterMind groups in 2024 with 10 dads per group. That means we’re only looking for 10 like-minded dads in each community. If you’re a dad raising a child with special needs, we hope you’ll join a local MasterMind Group and make the investment to become the best version of yourself. For more information, please see the show notes, or simply go to 21stCenturyDads. org.

Tom Couch: Now let’s hear this conversation between Special Father Marc Moschetto and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I’m thrilled to be talking [00:02:00] today with Marc Moschetto of Holly Spring, North Carolina, who is the CEO of KickMotor, host of The Rational Workforce podcast, neurodiversity advocate, and father of three. Marc, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Marc Moschetto: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be chatting with you as well.

David Hirsch: You and your wife, Kate, have been married for 27 years and are the proud parents of three children: Jacob, 24; Grace, 21; Samuel, 15; who collectively have experienced a variety of challenges, including ASD, anxiety, depression and food aversions, to name a few. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Marc Moschetto: Sure, so I grew up in a city called Lawrence, Massachusetts. It’s about a half an hour north of Boston. Incredible mom and dad. They met and started dating when they were 15 years old and remained together right up until my dad’s passing about a decade ago now.

Marc Moschetto: And just had a very blessed family life. We’re very typical blue collar Italian immigrant working [00:03:00] class family. Didn’t have a lot, but also weren’t for want of a lot of things. I had a very active parish life, our local Catholic parish. And it was just a great upbringing, my sister and I. So we had some fantastic role models.

David Hirsch: Good to hear. Not everybody can say that about their parents or their upbringing.

Marc Moschetto: Very true.

David Hirsch: Out of curiosity, what does your dad do for a living?

Marc Moschetto: So my dad, when he first started out straight out of high school, he was working on the loading docks at a leather tannery. The part of Massachusetts where we’re from was very industrial heavy. It was actually a birthplace of the industrial revolution in the States. There is cotton and textile plants and then there were tanneries. And over time those all moved south and then offshore. But my dad worked on a dock loading trucks and stuff at the tannery. And then a little bit later on in his career at one point a manager saw him handling a dispute or something on the docks and pulled him aside and said, “Hey, do you think you’d be any good at sales? Have you ever given it a try?” And he said, “I don’t know. Does it [00:04:00] pay better than what I’m doing now?” And he chuckled and said, “Yep, Sam, if you’re good at it, it does.” [David chuckling] So my dad said, “Sure, I’ll give it a try.” And that kind of launched his career in sales. So he made a very nice transition over from a very observant manager that I also think is rare these days too, right? When you have someone that’ll pay attention to the individual and give up those types of opportunities. And boy, did my dad grab it.

David Hirsch: I love that. Thank you for sharing. How would you describe your relationship with your dad?

Marc Moschetto: Very close. His father, my grandfather, was first generation born here. They came over from Sicily. Very typical, I think, of that kind of upbringing. So I could probably count on one hand the number of times he directly said, “Hey kid, I love you.” But man, you never doubted for a second that everything he did, every waking moment was in the service of the family.

Marc Moschetto: Again, it’s just, it’s such a wonderful… There’s a lot of talk about privilege these days. Man, I know that it was a privilege to be able to grow up like that. So we had a wonderful relationship. At one point, the tanneries that he was [00:05:00] working for in a sales capacity, a lot of those started to go overseas as well. And he said, you know what, I’m too old to start learning the ropes of international business, but he had a good enough network of smaller garment manufacturers, shoe manufacturers that were still in the area. So he pivoted from selling hundreds of thousands of yards of leather to New Balance and Converse and folks like that to doing smaller stuff.

Marc Moschetto: So he started his own business. It’s funny, here I am now having my own business. It’s following in his footsteps somewhat in that entrepreneurial regard, but it was just really great to have him there as I transitioned from student through my college years to getting out into the workforce and getting some of his great advice. And also him being able to shepherd me through the ups and downs of fatherhood. I was very blessed that I had him around for the birth of all three of my children and a good chunk of the adolescent years for at least two of them.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for sharing. It always warms my heart to hear somebody talk about their dad like you have today. And I’m wondering if there’s [00:06:00] an important lesson or two that come to mind when you think about your dad.

Marc Moschetto: Yeah, I think there’s a couple of things that really spring to mind. One was he always put family first. He valued hard work. Some would say workaholic. I’ve been accused of such things myself. Just the importance of family and respect and honoring them. It was just such a tremendous lesson that I carry with me this day. Always try to emulate the way your kids see you, right? And he was just larger than life. Always there, always taking care of things. And again, as I made that transition to parenthood myself a lot of guidance and a lot of anecdotes. He was big on anecdotes that I’m working on putting into a book. And I think we’ll talk about that in a minute. But just a fantastic way with words that were very simple and very direct. And those lessons I carry with me.

Marc Moschetto: Another thing was just always being able to take a stand for yourself and for others and do that in service of the community too. I mentioned we had a very rich parish life and at one point he was not the, ‘I’m going to go to church every Sunday’ [00:07:00] guy, but every Wednesday night he was helping with bingo at our parish and every Thanksgiving he was volunteering to serve to some of the elders in our community. So that service component never really left him. And it’s something that I’ve always admired and tried to emulate.

David Hirsch: Yeah, it sounds like your dad was a great role model, not just in one dimension, but multiple dimensions. And what I heard you say was that he had this family-first mentality, he had a good work ethic, he respected others, and he looked out for others as well through the church, like you were just describing. Not much more you could ask for when you look back and try to connect the dots. I’m thinking about other father figures starting with your grandfathers, first on your mom’s side and then on your dad’s side.

Marc Moschetto: Yeah, sure. So sadly, my mom’s father I never met. He passed about six months before I was born. But he was a veteran. Always heard stories about him. I didn’t get to know him personally. His wife, my grandmother, did, however, move in with our family after [00:08:00] he passed. I grew up with two moms in the house, which was really nice. My mom was, I could write a book about her, too. She’s just an incredible mom. And my grandmother was like that as well.

Marc Moschetto: My paternal grandfather was very much again… I keep talking about the stereotypical Italian or Sicilians. Like food. Everything seemed to revolve around food. At my grandparents’ house, we would have the big Christmas Eve, like they were the nucleus of the family and of their neighborhood. There was always a cast of hundreds, it felt like, coming through that house on Christmas Eve and just food upon food, which is where I get my physique today, probably, because I continue to indulge in that. But again, it’s very much that same spirit of the doors are open, you’re always welcome, but you always respect the house rules when you’re there. So I didn’t realize it at the time, but learning life lessons the whole way along, right?

David Hirsch: Yeah. You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only look backwards and have that understanding. So thanks again for sharing. Any other men that played an important role as a young [00:09:00] guy, or perhaps as a young adult?

Marc Moschetto: Yeah. There’s this guy by the name of Ray LaPlume. He and his wife were my parents’ best friends growing up from high school on. So they were always at the house and always part of the events. And when I was a kid, I used to love to write. Writing has always been a passion of mine, and draw. Nothing fancy or breathtaking or artistic, but like just cartoons, Bloom County and stuff like that. I was always drawing my own Calvin and Hobbes and whatnot. And he pulled me aside one day and he said, “Hey Marc, would you like to come to my shop? And I’ll show you how grownups who like to do what you do can make a living at it.” And he owned a print shop. This was back in the eighties so everything was still print-heavy. The internet was just a fever dream in a government lab somewhere. He brought me in and showed me how posters were made and flyers and brochures and books. And they were really a pretty full-service shop. And that got my gears turning that you know, maybe there’s an [00:10:00] opportunity for me to do something I’m passionate about for a living.

Marc Moschetto: And again, that was another thing that just really stuck with me all the way up into my college years. And I’m probably doing what I do today as a direct result of having that exposure and people who… These great… We haven’t talked about mom a lot. I don’t mean to… This is the dad podcast, right? So I don’t mean to intentionally exclude my mom or the wonderful women in my life, but you’re just having these great kind of male role models in my life that really helped define my North Star and make sure that I always kept going towards it.

David Hirsch: Yeah. I think of them as the angels in our lives, right? And again, you can’t know that maybe at the time, but you look back and you see how influential a role that they played, like Ray LaPlume had in your life.

Marc Moschetto: Absolutely.

David Hirsch: Any other individuals that come to mind?

Marc Moschetto: Yeah, absolutely. So this came along a little later in life. My wife and I met when we were 19, but I’ve got a wonderful father-in-law. This is another gentleman who is very seasoned in the world of parenting. He’s a Navy veteran and his specialty was submarines. The staging that would go up as the hulls were built [00:11:00] for these submarines. And then once the hulls were built, going inside and building out the decks, that was his purview. So he’s a gentleman who always has an eye for detail, tells an amazing story. He’s got a wonderful way about imparting his wisdom. He’s also ready to let fly with a couple of gems and sage words of advice. Probably the one that sticks out most to me is he used to say, “Buy it right and cry once” because I would always be the guy that was like, “Hey, why should I buy this thing when I can get this other thing for half price?” And then three months later I’m buying the half price thing again. Or he goes, “Marcus, come on now! Buy it right and cry once. Get it over with.” So again, just like the wonderful people that have a way with words and give these little pearls of wisdom that just stick with you.

David Hirsch: I love it. Thank you for sharing. So my recollection was you took a BA in journalism and advertising from Northeastern.

Marc Moschetto: Yes, sir.

David Hirsch: And I’m wondering where did your career take you?

Marc Moschetto: When I was a senior in high school, again, go back to those seeds that Ray LaPlume planted, I knew I wanted to get into the [00:12:00] world of, at that time I thought, just advertising. And if I fast-forwarded 20 years in the future I thought I’d be a creative director at an agency because I’ve always loved that storytelling element.

Marc Moschetto: Just being a, like a nervy senior in high school, I booked an appointment or I begged for an appointment with a creative director from one of the Hutter ad agencies in Boston at that point. And he said yes. So I sat down with him and I told him I was looking at all these different fancy schools. And he said, “Here’s the deal. Those are all amazing schools. You’re going to get there. You’re going to come back. You’re going to give me your resume. I’m going to say, Oh wow. You graduated from the Newhouse School of Communication. That’s really impressive. Show me your portfolio. Oh, you don’t have one? Okay. Maybe I can get you started in the mail room.” It all came down to experience and Northeastern was a school that had the co-op program.

Marc Moschetto: So it was a five-year school. I spent time actually working in public relations. I worked for an in-house ad agency for a shoe company of all places. So again, a little nexus point with my dad. And then I spent some time working for the [00:13:00] Boston Globe, which gave me a great insight into how newspapers work. It actually cured me a little bit of the journalism bug that I had for a while. But that experience really showed me that there wasn’t any particular aspect of the marketing mix that I loved more than another. So I went into, I was like a marketing generalist.

Marc Moschetto: My first real job out of college was I wrote copy for a little AM radio station out of north of Massachusetts, was right on the coast. Now no longer there. But from there, I was recruited to go into another company that was actually acquired by MassMutual. So I spent some time in that industry, but there I really had an opportunity. We were almost like an in-house agency for all of the different offices throughout New England. So there I did everything from writing scripts for radio spots to developing full marketing campaigns for new agents that were coming on board to writing email campaign. It was the really early days of doing some of the marketing automation stuff.

Marc Moschetto: So it was great. My education prepared me well for the [00:14:00] vocation and my upbringing prepare me well for navigating some of the trickier aspects of interpersonal relationships in the workforce. So it was off to the races in marketing, and I haven’t really looked back much since then.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for sharing. And I guess that’s all led or culminated into the work that you’re doing now in the name of KickMotor. So what does KickMotor do? What do you do?

Marc Moschetto: Sure. KickMotor is a marketing consultancy and creative agency that I started coming up on five years ago now. And I had spent my career, the lion’s share of it has been business to business marketing. And my last several whistle stops were as a chief marketing officer. And I’ve always gravitated towards working in small and growing companies, right? So I’ve worked for large multinational conglomerates and they have their pluses, but I always felt most at home working within organizations that were the Davids taking on the Goliaths. I really like that aspect of it. So typically smaller organizations, oftentimes they’re just taking on funding and everything they did from [00:15:00] startup to the point they’re at now. And that’s the niche I found myself in is helping organizations to define their marketing strategy, define who they are in the marketplace, getting all the programs and campaigns in place, and then building and supporting a team that can execute on it.

Marc Moschetto: So what I found was within that spot of the market was you tend to need like chief marketing officer level expertise on an episodic basis. So we’ve just taken on funding and we need to scale, or we’re an existing company and we’re entering a new market. And once you get the wheels turning and if I’m doing my job right and I’m training up a team that can keep things moving, as soon as those things are in place and clicking in those types of organizations, often you need to devote resources to other parts of the business that need to grow and expand. And I found myself being expensive headcount at a time when they didn’t necessarily need that.

Marc Moschetto: So after having a couple of areas where I worked myself out of a job, I said, you know what, let’s do this by design. Let’s start an agency where my [00:16:00] stated goal is to come in, help companies at that stage, get them off in the right direction. And then as their teams start to get up to speed or as I help them to recruit and onboard, I off board and can move on to other opportunities.

Marc Moschetto: Right now I’m an army of one with multiple resources that I can pull in of just folks in my network that have special skills that can augment what I’m doing. So I keep my overhead down. That allows me to keep my prices down for my clients. It limits the number of clients that I can work with at any one point in time, but I’m having an absolute blast. And like I said, coming up with my five year anniversary and still chugging. So something to be said for that, but I’m having a blast.

David Hirsch: I love it. And what I hear you saying is that it’s not one company that you’re doing the work for. It’s multiple companies. So I think that’s what makes it a little bit more interesting day to day, too.

Marc Moschetto: Absolutely.

David Hirsch: It sounds like you’re a little bit of a MacGyver in the world of marketing and pulling in the right resources when they’re necessary.

Marc Moschetto: That’s it. You need it. We can pull it off for you.

David Hirsch: We can probably do a whole other podcast on this, but [00:17:00] this is the Dad to Dad Podcast. So I’m curious to know, how did you and Kate meet?

Marc Moschetto: Kate and I met through a mutual friend, completely unplanned as probably most of the best relationships start. She was waitressing at a restaurant and taking time off between universities. She wasn’t getting the education she wanted at her current school so took a year off to save some dough and go pursue a different path. I was visiting a friend. We stopped by so she could pick up – she, my friend – could pick up her check and then we were gonna go catch a movie and she invited Kate along and I invited one of my buddies along.

Marc Moschetto: We talked through the entire movie and then didn’t see each other for six months. And it was funny because I had a girlfriend at the time, so I was being a good boy, but was going, “Hey, how’s your friend Kate doing? What’s going on?” The whole time Kate was asking about me too. Oh, he’s got a girlfriend! So at one point my girlfriend and I broke up and then Kate took the initiative and said, “All right, just give me Marc’s number. I’ll just talk to him.” And that was it. So we started off as friends. We had a friendship going for a little while and then that transitioned to something else. And [00:18:00] here we are today, 30+ years later, since we started dating and three kids and a couple of moves and, so far, so good. I’ve got her fooled.

David Hirsch: Yeah. I love the story. Thanks for sharing.

David Hirsch: I think it would be helpful for our listeners to just go child by child. And maybe you can give a brief summary. So let’s start with Jacob. What is his situation or diagnosis and how did it come about?

Marc Moschetto: So Jacob is my oldest. He’s currently wrapping up actually a psychology degree at university. With him he’s always been very independent, not driven by the same kind of crazy social stuff that a lot of teenagers get into. Incredible, off the charts intelligence. To the point where even when he was a kid, there were some times I was like, I thank God there’s Google because I got to look up what you’re talking about, kid. But just an incredibly bright, creative multi-instrument self-taught musician. Just incredible.

Marc Moschetto: And when we moved from Boston to North Carolina he [00:19:00] was 15. He was the same age as my youngest right now. They’d uncovered depression and anxiety issues that we’ve since come to find out were probably always there. He was incredibly good at masking it. It was one of those blessing in disguise things. We had some pretty dark days. There were some days where it actually got scary. But because he was able to go through this while he was home, while we had eyes on him and we could help him get to a point where he could get through to the other side of it, it helped him to pick up some skills and got him to a point where if this had surfaced, say when we were dropping him off in his dorm freshman year, there was some other significant stressor in his life that would bring that out when he didn’t have people around him that took such an interest. I shudder to think how it could have gone. But we’re in a good place today.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing. And Grace is a middle child, your daughter. She’s 21. What, if anything, does she have going on?

Marc Moschetto: Sure. So just turned 21. We just went down to Florida to celebrate her birthday with her. She’s going to school down there. We asked her what she wanted for her birthday. [00:20:00] And she said, “I would love for you guys to just come down and visit me. I want to spend some time at Disney World just like when we were kids, except I want to have a cocktail in each of the countries around EPCOT.” Which we did. We paced ourselves. We were all very well-behaved. We made sure we ate a lot and took all day to do it. But that’s how we celebrated her birthday. Her first legal drink, I think, was probably the operative phrase there.

David Hirsch: So out of curiosity, how many countries are there?

Marc Moschetto: I think we ended up, we might’ve skipped a couple of countries, but I think we ended up having nine or 10 drinks total while we were there. Yeah. Italy was the winner. There was a drink she had there. So my dad’s up in heaven, feeling very proud that she selected Italy as her favorite beverage. But no, she’s amazing. So Gracie is my absolute heads down, play through pain athlete. She’s five-foot-nothing on a good day, but just absolutely driven. So she’s done competitive cheer. She’s done gymnastics. She’s done competitive dance. She is exceptionally good at internalizing, right? We found out probably manifested like her freshman year at [00:21:00] university that she had like a food aversion which, honestly, I’d never encountered that prior to. Where she wants to eat, she’ll order her favorite food and then get two bites into it and it’s just suddenly the most unappealing thing in the world. And there’s a whole spectrum of things that were kind of feeding into that. But again, it’s something that we were able to get her help and get her some support with, and wrestled with anxiety issues that I think a lot of kids today are wrestling with.

Marc Moschetto: But again, it’s identifying and learning to be able to work your way through it. And obviously there are times when it gets more acute than others and other interventions are necessary. But very proud of both her and Jacob on their ability to persevere through and get to a point of self-awareness and health and understand the things they need to do to avoid the challenges from getting to a point of spiraling. And I think that’s incredibly astute and incredibly mature for kids their age. Young adults their age. Sorry, that’s insulting. They’re not kids anymore.

David Hirsch: Yeah. They’ll always be your kids, but yeah, I know what you’re saying.

Marc Moschetto: Absolutely.

David Hirsch: And one of [00:22:00] our daughters had a bout with anorexia when she was in high school. You did not mention anorexia but there’s a lot of psychological issues that relate to things we might refer to as a food disorder.

Marc Moschetto: Yeah.

David Hirsch: And I know it was drop everything you’re doing, pay attention so that this thing doesn’t take on a life of its own. But it seemed like at the time it was life-threatening.

Marc Moschetto: Yeah.

David Hirsch: And you have to treat it as such. So I didn’t hear you mention the word anorexia. But that was the thought that came to mind.

Marc Moschetto: Yeah, and it’s tough to navigate that, especially when you don’t have… There’s no owner’s manual for these sorts of things. There’s plenty of resources out there. What’s the Mike Tyson quote? “Everyone’s got a great strategy for the fight until you get punched in the face.” Like, all that stuff looks good on paper and then you’re confronted with it in real life and it’s a whole different ballgame when you’re in the thick of it, isn’t it?

David Hirsch: Absolutely. Thanks for sharing. And Samuel is your youngest. What’s his diagnosis and how has that come about?

Marc Moschetto: So Samuel is, he actually has a lot of traits similar with his older brother on the [00:23:00] intelligence scale. Just an incredibly smart kid. Samuel is autistic, and he also has ADHD. That’s a unique combination, or maybe not unique, but it’s a challenging combination. It can be. Also he had some eye issues when he was younger, so he had eye surgery when he was three, and we had to patch his eye. And you look back on a lot of the challenges that he was facing, and when you’ve got these kind of confluence of things that come together one can mask another. It can be hard to parse out what’s responsible for one thing and how do you treat it or how do you support it. And in hindsight, a lot of it becomes a lot clearer and you kick yourself as a parent and go, why didn’t I pick up on that sooner?

Marc Moschetto: We were able to get him tested. It was definitely in middle school, probably around sixth grade. And that was coming off of a string of, we had changed schools a couple of times and we could just never get a teacher who got him. There were times where I felt like at least once a week, we were heading to the school to have a meeting with the teacher or principal. And [00:24:00] we finally ended up getting him tested. And once that diagnosis came back, we were able to get him on an IEP. And that started to unlock just a lot of support that he needed that I think got him down the right road.

Marc Moschetto: He had the IEP in place and we were still having some issues at the time with the school. I vividly remember one time we got a text from him and he was in the men’s room in a stall. And he said, “Dad, can you reach out to the office and have someone come get me?” Because there are some bullies outside that want to throw water on him or pick a fight or whatever. And it just, it just breaks your heart.

Marc Moschetto: As we were wrestling with that, he was saying, “Guys, can I just be homeschooled? Can I not have to deal with this?” And our reaction was hey, dad’s starting a business and mom’s working and that’d be great, but we can’t do it. COVID comes along. Guess what? Sam’s doing class from the kitchen table on a laptop. And it was absolutely incredible to us because his grades went through the roof. His confidence went through the roof. And his particular flavor of autism is off the charts [00:25:00] intelligence, but from a social standpoint, he was behind his peers. So that social aspect of getting traction was always the biggest challenge and not being able to really discern when someone is… Kids in middle school can be brutal, right? So like when someone’s saying they’re your friend so they can do something not so nice, he had a hard time discerning that.

Marc Moschetto: So watching his grades go through the roof, watching his social skills go through the roof to the point where he wanted to join the Cub Scouts. He became like the pack leader for the roving gang of adolescents that lived in our neighborhood. And it was just so encouraging to see that. And then the second year, we had the option of sending him back to school where he’d have to be masked up all day or continue learning from home. And we opted to keep him home again. He continued to thrive. And the first time he set foot in his school in two years was his freshman year in high school. And my wife and I were like, this is binary. This is either going to be amazing or an epic disaster, and just prayed on it.

Marc Moschetto: And he came home from school that first day and I’m like, “Buddy, how was it?” And he goes, “It [00:26:00] was awesome! I love my teachers. And like the bus ride was great. And I found a group of friends.” And he just hit his stride. And he’s midway through his sophomore year now. He’s made the honor roll just about every semester. And he’s got such a great core of friends and they really have each other’s back, which is nice. But the biggest thing is that the faculty and staff there are so exceptional in helping him out. And all my kids went there and with all the issues that they wrestled with at various times, just amazing.

Marc Moschetto: I can’t say enough good things about the school and that’s really the key. If they’re getting support from home and they’re getting support in school and there’s a good pipeline of communication between the parents and the school, amazing things can happen. Now he’s doing a program where for the past two years, it’s through NC State, he’s learning how to fly a drone. He’s getting ready to take his commercial drone pilot license. And it’s just been incredible curricula specifically for kids who are autistic.

Marc Moschetto: I’m so encouraged by the way that businesses are starting to [00:27:00] think more broadly about accommodations for people with autism. And there’s special programs like this that are really tapping into an incredibly powerful demographic of individuals and future leaders that have incredible skill sets if they have the right conditions that kind of let those thrive.

Marc Moschetto: It’s been an interesting journey. We’re far from where we need to be with this, but that feeds into some of my activism work and some of the other things I’m doing.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for sharing. It’s probably one of the most positive COVID-oriented stories that I’ve ever heard. And the timing couldn’t have been any better in Samuel’s case. And hey, sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time. Better to be lucky than good sometimes.

Marc Moschetto: Yeah. And from a faith standpoint, I feel very close to my Catholic faith. And I chalk it up to, there are no accidents, right? Like the fact that I decided to start this business where I’d work from a home office a year before COVID hit and, Sammy had his experience and [00:28:00] all the positive things that brought around. And I feel guilty on one level because COVID had such horrendous impacts on so many people. But in our little bubble, it had some setbacks for my two oldest kids, but with Sam, it really helped him to thrive. So yeah, it’s incredible.

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: So I’m thinking about each of the stories that you just shared about your kids. And were there some fears that you and Kate had along the way that you can look back and say, that’s what we were thinking then and [00:29:00] maybe it didn’t transpire to the worst of our concerns? Any of those recollections?

Marc Moschetto: Yeah, I think that, certainly with my oldest son, and as he’s an adult, I want to respect his independence and not go too deeply into things. But there were certainly, as I mentioned, some very dark days with depression and anxiety. They’re such insidious states of mind and challenges. And I’ve wrestled with bouts of anxiety myself, one that sent me to a cardiologist because five minutes before a board meeting I swore I was having a heart attack. And it’s one of these things where until you’re in such proximity to it, or until you’ve experienced it yourself, you don’t know how deep that rabbit hole can go.

Marc Moschetto: I think the most prominent one with us was again going back to Sammy’s high school career, right? And that whole summer leading up to, okay this is it where there’s no more class from the kitchen table. There’s no more mom and dad hanging out to make sure that he was getting tasks X, Y, and Z done. We’re really going to have to [00:30:00] rely on a school system and on his IEP and having the accommodations in place. And it was nerve wracking. It’s one of those things that you just, you love your kid and you’re getting ready to send them out into Big Boy Land. And you know how cruel kids can be. It’s so easy to get bought into the fear. And when he ever came home that day and told us about how amazing his day was and how excited he is, and that hasn’t slowed down ever since, the legitimate tears of joy and deep cleansing breaths and maybe a glass of champagne once they all went to bed to celebrate.

Marc Moschetto: It was also a powerful testament in not automatically assuming worst case scenarios. And I think that having that kind of optimism, not unfounded optimism, but just understanding that, you know what, we’re doing everything that we can to move things in the right direction. And if things go sideways, we’ll deal with it as it comes up. But I think that those were some lessons we learned with our first child and some of the mental health challenges he had that a buoyant spirit can go an awful long way.

David Hirsch: Yeah, thanks for sharing. [00:31:00] The glass is either half full or half empty and sometimes one parent will be more optimistic than the other and most of our worries never materialize. So you question yourself about getting too far out in the future with anything, right? You just want to be the best in this case parent you can be at the moment and not be blindly optimistic, but try to stay positive. And sometimes things turn out better than you can imagine. And that’s certainly what I’ve heard you describe today.

Marc Moschetto: Yeah, absolutely. It’s about being able to turn some of those challenges into something positive too. And it’s wonderful to see your kids grow up and adopt that stance themselves. Like my oldest Jacob is in psychology. And we talk to him about what’s driving you, how do you feel there? And a lot of it is driven by his experiences and what he went through and came through the other side of and knows that’s not always the case, but also is keenly aware of the unique pressures and challenges that [00:32:00] young men face as they’re coming up. And he wants to be able to parlay his experience plus education into thinking through a new way of how you can maybe intervene earlier and how you can create different environments so maybe other kids don’t need to go through the same thing.

Marc Moschetto: And it’s wonderful to see how you can take that and turn it into action. And it doesn’t have to be all positive either, right there. You could be driven to action by some negative things you’ve experienced as well. But the key is being able to swing that around, to take that negative and translate it into a positive and do something better for others moving forward that really gets me fired up.

David Hirsch: So let’s talk about The Rational Workforce podcast, which started in June of 2023. It’s a YouTube platform that you operate from. And my understanding is that you interview industry leaders. How often does it come out? What’s been your experience?

Marc Moschetto: Yeah, so it’s really a mixed bag. I’m not doing as many interviews as I would like. But the whole thing is themed around, as I sit back and I [00:33:00] look at a lot of these discussions that are going on in pop culture, even in business, there’s not a lot of nuance out there, right? And I try to come at it from the middle of let’s explore these topics, let’s talk about it.

Marc Moschetto: [Audio excerpt from The Rational Workforce podcast]

Marc Moschetto: Hey folks, Marc from The Rational Workforce and I just wanted to share a story with you today that, it’s just a feel good story. There’s a lot of negativity. There’s a lot of messed up stuff that’s going on in the world right now. And it’s just nice every now and again to just see people doing cool things to help other people out. And…

Marc Moschetto: [Fade out of audio excerpt]

Marc Moschetto: Through my experience, I hear about DEI, and I think that’s wonderful because it’s helping to create environments and accommodations where neurodiverse people like my son can have this opportunity. But there’s not a lot of autism and maybe some of these things are taking a backseat to maybe some of the other social issues that are popping up.

Marc Moschetto: So The Rational Workforce is a platform where I explore things like that, where I take some of these topics that pop up. I really try to look at it from a couple of different lenses and [00:34:00] always look at it through the viewpoint of how it impacts your everyday worker. And we’re growing slowly but surely. We’ve got just north of 800 subscribers.

Marc Moschetto: When something pops up, it could be legislative, it could be social, it could be socio-economic, but the workers in the crosshairs of it, that’s the stuff I want to dig into. And sometimes it’s talking to other people and getting some of those different viewpoints. Sometimes it’s just me breaking down articles that are coming at it from two different vantage points and finding a different way to see the light at the end of the tunnel with it. But that’s really what it’s all about.

David Hirsch: Great. Thank you. I’d also like to talk about BeMe.ai, led by Sarah Glofcheskie from Toronto, Canada who did a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network. My understanding is that you’ve been involved with that organization since the beginning of 2021. Why don’t you use this as an opportunity to remind our listening audience about BeMe.ai?

Marc Moschetto: Yeah, absolutely. So BeMe.ai [00:35:00] is a platform that is designed exclusively to help autistic children and those within their circle of care. If you think about all of the different individuals that are part of a child’s life, right? It could be medical, it could be teaching, it could be therapy, right? This is a platform that allows parents to record everything from medication to food to hydration levels to even things like bowel movements. Gut health has a lot to do with a lot of different things. Being able to record that all into an application and then it also has teachers can do the same, teachers and therapists can record when a particularly good thing happens, when there is maybe a challenge and it’s all rooted in data, right? So you start to get this view of patterns and what works and what doesn’t and how to be able to drive better outcomes for your kids.

Marc Moschetto: And it’s really, it’s innovative. They’re starting to grow in [00:36:00] scale and I’ve been very blessed to get involved with it since actually before it was technically in existence. I think Sarah and I met on LinkedIn. I do a lot of writing on LinkedIn. I do exactly what the social media mavens tell you not to do, right? Don’t write long entries, do a lot of short stuff, frequent. But I tend to be very open about some of the stuff going on, including some of the challenges and opportunities and wonderful things that happen when you have a child with autism. And I think that’s how we found each other.

Marc Moschetto: So now I’m on the advisory board and I have an opportunity to watch that organization grow. And it’s just, again, it’s like I mentioned earlier, it’s so wonderful to see someone, Sarah, who also has a child with autism be able to take the challenges that she bumped into and parlay that into this wonderful new platform that has an opportunity to help millions. And it’s just so exciting to see that kind of come to be.

David Hirsch: Yeah, what I love most about BeMe, my understanding of it is that it’s data-driven, right? Obviously collecting the data, inputs can be time-consuming, some might think [00:37:00] tedious. But it’s not going to be driven by anecdotal stories or impressions that people have here or there, informed or maybe not so well informed. And how could it not lead to better outcomes? And I’m wondering, has Samuel benefited from some of the work that BeMe.ai does or not?

Marc Moschetto: Yeah. This is one of those things where I wish this was around 10 years ago. Because by the time Sarah and I found each other and she brought BeMe into existence, Sammy was already well down the path. But wow if we had this at a younger age, I think you could have avoided a lot of stress, a lot of trial and error with finding out what works and what doesn’t. And I think it could have helped us get to those lightbulb ‘aha’ moments a lot sooner in terms of, oh, wait a minute, when he takes his medication at this time, this happens versus if we do it an hour earlier, an hour later, right? There’s all those little things that, organically on its own, might take a while to figure out. [00:38:00] But when you bring this data-centric approach to it, it becomes illuminated a lot faster.

Marc Moschetto: And the other thing too, is if you look at just the prevalence of autism diagnoses. In 2010, it was one in 68. And the last time it was measured in 2020, it was one in 36. And if you dial it back even earlier in, in the year 2000, it was one in 150. So you do that plot line. And you can see how A, how it’s growing in prevalence, but B, what makes a tool or a platform like BeMe become that much more valuable as time goes on.

Marc Moschetto: So it’s a wonderful thing and it also, bringing it back to my upbringing, it’s being able to put your time, energy and effort into something that is giving back and helping people out with this particular case with what Sarah’s built, an international community that can tap into this sort of thing. So it’s just, it’s wonderful. I’m so proud to be part of that organization and keep your eye on them because they’re growing.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing. You’ve been working on a book for a while, the working title of which I understand to be, Get a Bigger Table.

Marc Moschetto: Yes, sir.

David Hirsch: What’s the backstory? What’s your [00:39:00] expectation or what’s your hope for that project?

Marc Moschetto: Yeah, so the backstory, again, it goes back to Dad. It goes back to my Italian upbringing. I mentioned my grandparents were the social nucleus of the family. And when my grandparents passed, that mantle was passed onto my Dad. So he always loved having cookouts and parties and open houses for the holidays and everything. And he had a saying and a mindset where the door is always open. You come in, you get a plate of food and there’s always going to be a seat at the table for you. And if you get so crowded that there isn’t a seat at the table, that’s a sign that you need a bigger table, not a sign that you take away seats from someone who’s already there.

Marc Moschetto: And I love that story because A, it’s emblematic of how I grew up, but B, when you look forward into what’s going on at work today in the workforce. You look at so many different areas and it’s about like, how do we take away to make room for others? And it’s just talking about a mindset of how do you make space for everybody? How do you make sure that we can all get ahead? How do you make sure that [00:40:00] everyone feels welcome and respected?

Marc Moschetto: And it’s one of 10 Samisms. My dad’s name was Salvatore, again very typical of the immigrant experience. He had an Americanized name, which was Sam. We called them Samisms. So I picked 10 Samisms that as a kid, my sister and I would look at each other and go, I have no idea what he’s talking about. What does that even mean? And as you get older, you figure it out. So it’s a combination of words of wisdom from an Italian dad that I’d like to share with everybody and then look at it through kind of a contemporary lens. And I don’t care if I sell two copies and it will probably be my mom and my sister. Maybe I’ll get the two of them to buy a copy. [David chuckles] But it’s just a way for me to honor him, to remember him and to put something positive back out and do it through the pearls of wisdom that I got as I was growing up.

David Hirsch: Yeah thanks for sharing, and we’ll keep an eye for when that book debuts. I’m curious to know what some of the other Samisms are. And it’s a really errant thought, but the seat at the table, right? There’s a biblical reference to that as well.

Marc Moschetto: Sure.

David Hirsch: And I love the [00:41:00] concept of making more room at the table. In a strange way, it recalls an interview I did maybe 100+ episodes ago with a guy in Larchmont, New York, an Emmy-winning TV producer, author, father of two, just an amazing guy. Miguel Sancho is his name. And it doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re talking about, but it has something to do with bigger. But he was not dealing with the issues that were piling up in his family and the issues that he was dealing with personally. So there’s this concept of sweeping things under the rug.

Marc Moschetto: Yep.

David Hirsch: When you’ve got a problem, we’ll just sweep it under the rug as if it doesn’t exist. And his way of dealing with it was just get a bigger F-ing rug, right? [Marc laughs]

Marc Moschetto: So again they’re adjacent.

David Hirsch: Yeah.

Marc Moschetto: Not the same, but adjacent. Yeah. Oh, that’s hysterical.

David Hirsch: Okay. You made reference to your spirituality, but I’m wondering what role spirituality has played on your journey.

Marc Moschetto: I’ve got a tattoo on my forearm that reads “Aura et labora.” And it’s a [00:42:00] Benedictine phrase and loosely translated it’s, “Prayer and work,” right? So the two are so deeply intertwined that if your vocation, even in its most arduous state, through the right lens and viewed appropriately is actually honoring God. And I got this as I was launching the business and there were many nights at 2am I’m wrapping up a project or a proposal, knowing that at 5am the alarm is going to go off so I can get ready to take my kids to school. It’s an inspiration and it’s something that’s always there with me. I wanted to have an outward symbol of it. But the days that you have to tap into that extra well to get something done or to persevere through a challenge or to deal with the curve ball, for me my faith is absolutely instrumental. It gives me the foundation I need to dig into it.

Marc Moschetto: And you mentioned a biblical verse earlier. The other one that has just absolutely dominated my adult life is, “This too shall pass.” And it works in both directions. When you’re going through a rough patch, you’re going to get through it. It [00:43:00] may seem like forever, but you’ll get through it. And those good times when you’re riding high, it’s not always going to be the case. So really make sure that you savor it while you’re there. And it’s an awfully simple phrase that covers an awful lot of ground when you take it to heart.

David Hirsch: Yeah thanks for sharing. Very impactful. I’m thinking about advice now, and I’m wondering what advice you can share with parents, specifically dads, who find themselves on the receiving end of a diagnosis.

Marc Moschetto: Yeah, I think the biggest thing… And look, we all take our own personal baggage to the party, For me, when I first got it, it got me into a mindset of, there’s medication that has unquestionably helped him. But I was so resistant because I felt like that was a knee-jerk reaction that oh, so-and-so is a certain way, there’s a pill for it. So-and-so is a certain way there’s a pill for it. And I was pigheaded about it and I was reluctant, even as we started to get into… There’s a lot of trial and error, sadly still, that goes on with finding the right medication and the right mix. [00:44:00] And a lot of these take a while to ramp up before you can see an effect. And if it’s not a great effect, if you need to try something else, it takes a while to ramp down.

Marc Moschetto: The two biggest things are always be dialed in to what is being recommended for your child, research it. Google can be a very scary tool when you’re trying to diagnose things, but it can be an incredibly valuable tool as you’re trying to look up information and some of the access to some of the latest research. So I persevere through that.

Marc Moschetto: And then the other part of it is patience. Patience with your child, obviously. Patience with the process. And most importantly, have some patience and some grace for yourself, because I think a lot of what everyone takes on, but especially men I think, and men that kind of grew up in that blue collar Gen-X environment where you take on the responsibilities and you’re the head of your household and you got to be the guy that’s the calm hand at the rudder. And that’s a lot to take on when you’re trying to pay the bills and make sure your kid’s getting everything he needs and you’re trying to start or grow a business or just be a good employee. It’s a lot to take on. [00:45:00] And you might only need one good friend, but have that good friend you can just drop all the pretenses around and have those conversations and give yourself the grace to know, you know what, okay I’m not feeling so chipper and positive today. I’m going to acknowledge it and I’m going to work through it. And tomorrow’s a better day. And I promise you, stay the course and you’ll get there. You’ll have some positive outcomes on the other side of it.

David Hirsch: Yeah. If I can paraphrase what you said, be intentional, be well-informed, be patient and give yourself, maybe your spouse for that matter, some grace along the way. So thanks for sharing.

Marc Moschetto: Absolutely.

David Hirsch: Why have you agreed to be a mentor father as part of the Special Fathers Network?

Marc Moschetto: When you, especially when you get a diagnosis, if you haven’t been exposed to it before, you can feel like you’re on an island, right? You can feel like you’re the only person going through it. And it’s one of the reasons why I’m so open about it in my writings and in conversations like this is that until you put it out there, until you shed some light on it, A, it lightens your load, but B, you never know when someone’s going to sit back and go, oh my gosh, I thought I was the only [00:46:00] one. I thought that I was such a terrible dad because I didn’t know how to handle this situation. And if you can be that voice for someone, if you can provide that guidance, it’s so invaluable.

Marc Moschetto: And I do a lot of mentoring just for people that are coming up in marketing or some younger people that are getting going into the workforce. And what I always tell them when I start mentoring them is look, your path is your path. You’re not going to walk the same road that I walked in exactly the same way. So I can’t give you that. What I can give you is a map of where all the landmines that I stepped on are. And trust me, I stepped on a few. You’re going to step on your own, but at least you know the ones that I stepped on, so you don’t go in the same spot. And not to be reductive or silly about it, but I think that sometimes just having that, just having the, here’s a situation I bumped into, here’s how not to do it. Here’s how you can approach it. There’s a lot of value in that. And there are too few resources out there, especially for men, that bring this to light. Really hats off to you for being such a positive part of that, because we all need support. Whether we like to admit it or not, we all need support.

David Hirsch: [00:47:00] Yeah. Thank you for sharing. And we’re thrilled to have you as part of the network. Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up?

Marc Moschetto: No, I think just thank you for the service that you’re providing and keep doing what you’re doing. As I mentioned, there’s not enough folks out there that are willing to invest the time, energy, and effort to support this community. And it really is, it’s a community. We’re going to be able to lighten the load on each other when we distribute it and we share our experiences. And at the very least, if you can help someone understand they’re not going through it alone, there’s a tremendous value to that too. So thank you. Keep it up.

David Hirsch: Thanks. Let’s give a special shout out to Tim Wackenruder at BeMe.ai for helping connect us.

Marc Moschetto: Absolutely. Thank you, Tim. Appreciate that.

David Hirsch: If somebody wants to learn more about your work or to contact you, what’s the best way to do that, Marc?

Marc Moschetto: Yeah, best thing is to visit my website, which is KickMotor. com. Teach you a little bit about my business. It’s got all my contact info there if you’d like to reach out to me. And that is not a pitch for new business. That’s if there’s anything I covered today during this [00:48:00] discussion that you just want to bounce off of someone, by all means I’m here for it. If you’re a YouTube person check out The Rational Workforce. Just run that as your search, go to the channel. I’d love it if you’d check out my content, give it a subscribe. And I’m trying to build a community there too. So your comments and input on the stuff we’re covering is much appreciated and I think very valuable for other folks that are out there in the workforce. So I appreciate it.

David Hirsch: We’ll be sure to include that information so it will make it as easy as possible for somebody to follow up with you.

Marc Moschetto: Excellent. Thank you.

David Hirsch: Marc, thank you for your time and many insights. As a reminder, Marc is just one of the dads who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising a child 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 21stCenturyDads. org.

David Hirsch: 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 [00:49:00] help to keep our content free to all concerned. Would you please consider making a tax-deductible contribution? I would really appreciate your support. Marc, thanks again.

Marc Moschetto: Thank you.

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 [00:50:00] Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch.

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.