Parenting Tips: Young Dad Podcast · Jey Young

Still Empty? Rethinking Fatherhood & Fulfillment with Josh F. | EP268

·42 min·2 clips

Josh says the real work starts when resistance turns into a partner feeling disappointed and you stay present anyway.

1. Young Dad Podcast EP268 centers on fatherhood, fulfillment, and the search for connection with Josh F. and host Jay. 2. Jay introduces Josh as the founder of Mench, a North London community for men seeking purpose, presence, and brotherhood through coaching, men’s circles, and modern rites of passage. 3. The episode asks what men do when work, parenting, and achievement leave them feeling “not enough” and still empty. 4. Josh traces his path back to running a video-focused creative agency in the UK while his son was three months old. 5. He says his mother was in a life-altering car crash and spent about three months in hospital, with the first weeks leaving the family unsure whether she would live or die. 6. He describes leaving work with a “glazed look” and realizing the heaviness was tied to ten years of narratives about work, achievement, and not feeling enough. 7. Josh says his wife told him she could not keep acting as his therapist and needed him to get help. 8. He explains that she had become his therapist over the previous decade, which was unhealthy for both of them. 9. Josh says he first found a local life coach, partly because therapy still felt taboo and he wanted support beyond work. 10. He says serendipity led him to Kenny and a community called Men Speak, where men’s circles gave him a place to process life with other men. 11. Josh says he found “my tribe,” and Kenny later became his supervisor and mentor. 12. He argues that many men have loving parents, friends, and partners but still cannot be met in the specific way they need in hard moments. 13. He says a separate space creates less neediness and less weight when men return to their families and friends. 14. Josh gives the example of a man whose closest relief came from a CrossFit community rather than from his old friends. 15. He says the hardest pushback is the claim that there is no time, then lists a typical day of work, school runs, bath time, and Netflix. 16. He says choosing not to create space often leads to resentment, sadness, and loneliness because it feels imposed instead of chosen. 17. Josh describes resistance as both self-protection and a signal that the heart is asking for change. 18. He says courage can mean taking time for yourself, then staying present when a partner feels disappointed instead of trying to fix everything. 19. The interview style is conversational, practical, and direct, with Jay using personal examples, while Josh answers with frameworks and concrete steps. 20. Men who feel stuck, lonely, or overcommitted will get the most from it, while people wanting pure entertainment may skip it.

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