Fatherhood: The Fifteen Minutes That Changed Everything

Matt Gilhooly (00:00)
Drew had the kind of life that looks fine from the outside. Good job, beautiful wife, kids, a house, all the things you're supposed to want. But underneath it all, he was drifting, going through the motions, quietly convincing himself that maybe this was just how life felt. Then one afternoon he walked through the door and found his wife on the floor, his six month old son barely breathing, and in that moment everything that had been easy to ignore suddenly wasn't.

Drew Norton (00:27)
And when she went to pick him up, he was face down. And as she picked him up, he was limp and and his body is was gray and he wasn't breathing.

Matt Gilhooly (01:11)
everyone, welcome to the Life Shift Podcast. I'm here with Drew. Hello, Drew.

Drew Norton (01:15)
Hey, Matt, excited to be with you today and grateful for you letting me come on the show.

Matt Gilhooly (01:19)
Well, I'm grateful that you wanted to. I think that this experience of being a podcaster and having these conversations with people all over the world, I never ever could have dreamed for myself growing up. I was deep in a grief I c I call it failing grief journey after my mom died. And like I just wish podcasts exist so that we could hear like grown versions of ourselves talking about like the things we went through and that maybe it would.

Be okay in the end.

Drew Norton (01:50)
Yeah, I love that and we'll get into this, but a lot of what I do now is I feel like to help the old me from five, 10 years ago that needed somebody to lean on and to support him.

Matt Gilhooly (02:03)
I I feel that

I feel that so much. I think, especially as grown men growing up and talking about vulnerabilities or whatever, I think it's so important nowadays where I felt growing up. I don't know if you felt this way, but you just I wasn't allowed to show that I was sad or grieving or any of those things. It was very much like you can be angry and you can be happy and those are the things that you can show up in the world as because you're a boy.

Drew Norton (02:27)
Yeah, well,

it's funny. I was actually thinking about this today and not I don't I felt the same way. I don't know if it was because someone told me that. But I think back to my dad, I've maybe seen him cry once his whole life, like his generation's just a more stoic keep things in kind of kind of way they did things. And there's. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (02:43)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. We're breaking the mold. Let's

break it. So before we get into your specific life shift story, can you tell us who Drew is in 2026? Like how do you show up in the world? How do you identify these days?

Drew Norton (03:03)
Yeah, first and foremost, I'm a husband and a father. been married to my beautiful wife for, 14 years, and we've got four beautiful children. I'm a man of God. My faith is very important in my life. And my day-to-day, I'm one of the founders of the Abundant Man Project.

And so what we're known for is building men and our missions to inspire men to be abundant and amplify their God-given potential. And so going out and helping men build their lives is what I do.

Matt Gilhooly (03:36)
I mean, kudos to you for doing all that, plus, you know, being a father of four. I'm sure that takes up some of your time as well. In the work, yeah, well, yeah, you wouldn't trade it for anything. Are are you finding in your work that more men are being willing and leaning into this? Just as we said, like our parents' generations were probably not as interested in in such things.

Drew Norton (03:43)
Absolutely. The best time.

Matt Gilhooly (04:04)
Because it might involve being vulnerable or looking in inward a little bit more. Are you finding more men just open to doing that?

Drew Norton (04:13)
Yes, in fact, the response I've gotten the most as I've shared with people what I do and what our organization does is, men need that. So glad you're doing that. I didn't expect to hear that response as much as I have. And so I guess maybe it's validating. Maybe it's validating to feel like, what we're doing is needed.

Matt Gilhooly (04:27)
No. Yeah.

Well, it's one thing for

other people to say men need that, but the fact that men are leaning in and actually following through with that I think is maybe something that's come about in the last ten years or so that I think people are just more I don't know, more human.

Drew Norton (04:51)
It's

funny because I think men are also quicker to say, men need that and not, I need that. And those that are in are like, yes, I've needed this.

Matt Gilhooly (04:55)
well yeah, well

That I mean, I think it's great and I would imagine

that your story feeds into a lot of that. As most most of our, you know, when we find the thing that lights us up and fills our cup usually is something that is built from something else. So why don't you paint the picture of who Drew was before this main line in the sand moment that we're gonna talk about today, knowing full well that you probably have many life shift moments in your life.

Drew Norton (05:06)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah before the one we're to talk about today. I was a I was a young husband and father I guess maybe i'm still young for depending on who who's listening to this a young father in his late very late 20s almost 30 years old I would I would describe myself as drifting in a lot of ways I had a lot of a lot of ambition and at the same time I there is a lot of areas of my life where

I wasn't taking care of myself. I wasn't stepping up as the ways I could as a husband or father and kind of just going through the motions of life very much.

Matt Gilhooly (06:03)
Were you that way before too?

Like even as a younger child?

Drew Norton (06:07)
No, no, think I was always, you know, I was someone that most of the things I've done in my life, I've done very well, graduated top of my class. There's 28 kids. It's not hard to be in the top 28 in your graduating class when it's that small. to graduate. Right, right. Graduated right at the top of my class, always did well in school. I wasn't a great athlete, but enjoyed sports and did well.

Matt Gilhooly (06:08)
Okay.

Fair. You could have been twenty eight.

Drew Norton (06:34)
in the sports that I was in and typically succeeded in the jobs and the careers I had. I believe what happened is I just got into having kids and a family and trying to figure out who I was and figure out life. Kids are definitely hard. You get married and it's hard enough to try and figure out who you are with somebody else and how that relationship works.

We pretty quick, I see, we'd probably been married. Within two years of being married, we had our first kid, and so you add that dynamic, and a couple kids later, you're tired, and in some days, I just felt like I was kind of surviving as a dad, just trying to figure all of the, what's my career, what's my life, what things look like with my wife and kids. So in a lot of ways, I think I just got complacent.

Matt Gilhooly (07:25)
Yeah. Did you feel complacent or was it something looking back now you're like, you were just kind of coasting through? 'Cause there's I think there's a difference of just like existing and not really like, why am I doing this versus man, I'm depressed or I'm feeling certain ways. So how are you feeling at the time?

Drew Norton (07:26)
with a lot of areas in my life.

Some of it I recognized, some of it I didn't. So there were always feelings of like, hey, I could be doing more in my faith. As a new young dad, gained a lot of weight. And it was just trying to balance the career, the kids, the spouse, all those different things. And I just.

So there was a part of me that recognized, this is not going the way I wanted life to go, but also kind of just accepting, hey, maybe this is how it's going to be. And I was always very driven. around this time in my life, also had, right before the event we talked about, probably six months before, I'd been in a leadership position and was hoping to buy a business.

from my boss at the time and been running a couple of his offices and agencies. And he wasn't as ready to sell as I was ready to buy. And so I decided to move on and started work, started some of that work on me around that time. And I think it was some ambition that was driving that, but it was five or six years of feeling like I'd progressed a little bit, but not near where I wanted to be at that point in my life.

Matt Gilhooly (08:54)
Yeah, so you were you you had a bit of a tug, I guess, that was pulling you, but would you s would you classify the the energy or the motivation behind it was high? Or were you just like, Okay. So you were noticing that it was time to

Drew Norton (08:59)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

I felt something in me like something's got to change. And I'll address this a little bit more in a moment. But at the time, I thought, hey, I've got to make a career shift. And so it was a pretty drastic career shift that happened right before the moment we're going to talk about today I felt like, something's got to change in my life. And at the time, I thought the reason for the change was like, to make more money to kind of

launched my career and a lot of those things happened. But I came across some other realizations through that.

Matt Gilhooly (09:42)
Yeah.

Well, it's interesting too. I think I don't know about you, but like growing up for me, so much of what I did felt very checklist. Like I felt like society had this checklist for all of us. And, you know, you graduate high school and then you go to a good college and then you get a good job, then you get promoted. You buy the you know, and like and each thing you're told, you know, like you'll get there and you'll be happy. And for me, it was just like, all right, check mark.

I'm not happy yet. What do I do next? And so like part of me associates with what you said of like, maybe if I just change my job or I get more money, I'll feel that value, I'll feel that need that maybe is that empty hole. Does any of that align?

Drew Norton (10:28)
and

yeah, resonates so much. I spent so many years of my 20s and early 30s saying, I'll be happy when. Like, I'll be happy when I get the job, when we go on the vacation, when I reach this certain status or title in what I'm doing. it often drove me. Like, I'm very much driven by external reward.

And I recognize that that being the complete focus often left me feeling empty or aching a little bit at end of the day. So.

Matt Gilhooly (11:01)
Yeah. Yeah. And you said

you had had strayed or maybe you could do more as it relates to your faith. Was it something that you grew up was faith a big part of growing up? That was okay. Okay.

Drew Norton (11:11)
Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, I

grew up in a religious home. My dad was a religious educator. served a two-year mission for my church. So it was very much a part. And so there was a lot of that, too, where I just felt some of these kids is like, oh, I try to take little kids to church. That's difficult, too.

Matt Gilhooly (11:20)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you felt like you were drifting

from the traditions, I guess, that you had established for yourself. Okay. Just curious if it was a lot of people that I end up talking to find their faith in the journey versus maybe having that established and then fall out or drift, if you will. Okay.

Drew Norton (11:33)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It was always there, but I

even felt like I was distant from God and my beliefs. Just not filling the fire I'd felt at earlier times in my life.

Matt Gilhooly (11:59)
And last question before you get into your life shift moment. Curious if if I had met you, shook hands with you, would I know any of this? Like was was the outside did you have this seemingly good life?

Drew Norton (12:08)
Probably not.

For the most part, yeah, I mean, we weren't without anything, but there was a lot of internal unsettled, unfulfillment, and I wasn't very open about that. I didn't talk about that with people. Maybe my wife would hear a comment or two here or there, but not something I really ever opened up about or shared with people. Yeah, you're just...

Matt Gilhooly (12:37)
So people would just normally think you were fine, everything was good.

Drew Norton (12:42)
Yep, he's got a good job, a nice house, some beautiful kids. And you could see I was overweight. That was pretty apparent at the time.

Matt Gilhooly (12:51)
Like that

just makes it harder. I think it puts more pressure on us because now everyone thinks we're better than we are. So why aren't we feeling it's it's a mess? But go on. So you're you're hitting this point. It sounds like there's a point in which it's like do something or get off the pot kind of moment for you.

Drew Norton (13:13)
Yeah, and so part of it started with this like, man, if I want the things I want, I've got to make a change in what I'm doing. I made a choice to go all in and change. And I'd always had a background in sales. But I went from a salary commission job to an all commission 1099 role. And so I felt like, well, I've got to make this work for the first time. And probably 10 years, I started some work on me.

started reading books, buying sales courses, studying again to improve myself. I love sales and that's not the intent of this podcast, but I really just dove into bettering that part of my life, bettering the way I was able to communicate and talk with others.

And just thought once again, this is to help me make more money. That's why I'm doing this.

Matt Gilhooly (14:04)
Mm-hmm.

Not necessarily for the fulfilling aspect of building yourself as a human, but more like this is a a way to get there. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Drew Norton (14:12)
No, purely transactional. Purely like, I know

if I want to do better at this, I've got to improve this area. And that was the driving motivation. I was late 20s, getting ready to go in my early 30s.

Matt Gilhooly (14:20)
And we all and you were thirty something? Early thirties? Okay. Which is

I for a lot of people. I just talked to someone that's that talked about around that time period in her life. It was very much like, Who am I? Like so I I think a lot of us hit not that thirty's old, but we see thirty and we're like, you know, it's we're no longer twenty, it's coming up. So there's also that just natural part of life changing in a new decade.

Drew Norton (14:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So I had moved into this new role and we ended up getting a place. The role required me to work from about two and a half hours away from where we live. And we weren't sure if we wanted to make this a full commitment. We loved the community we lived in, but we needed to go into a bigger market for this to work. So I got an apartment. I was...

Matt Gilhooly (15:08)
Mm-hmm.

Drew Norton (15:13)
usually gone five or six days a week. I'd spend two or three days away, come home for a day or two, go about. My wife would sometimes bring our little kids out to visit. And one day I called my wife. had gotten out of a sales meeting and I told her, hey, honey, why don't you get the kids ready? I'll be home in 15, 20 minutes. We can pack up the kids. Let's head back to our home. Let's load up from the apartment and go.

And a lot happened in that next 15 minutes. I remember as I was pulling into the gates of the apartments and driving down the gates, seeing an ambulance coming the other way, seeing the sirens and hearing that. I'm not thinking much in the moment, but I pull up to our apartment and I remember walking in the door and

My wife was kneeling on the floor. She was crying and in tears. the time, six month old, was barely breathing. She was on the phone with 911. And two other kids were crying. And it seemed like seconds later, I don't know how long it was, but those paramedics were rushing in right behind me. They pushed me out of the way. What had happened?

is in the time that I had called my wife, she had decided, OK, I better go get our son up from a nap. And she almost went back to sleep. So grateful she didn't. She said, no, you know what? I'm going to get up and go. She felt a prompting or felt a thought of like, hey, I've got to go get him. And he was in a portable crib or a pack and play.

And when she went to pick him up, he was face down. And as she picked him up, he was limp and and his body is was gray and he wasn't breathing. She there's a lot of miracles to the story. I could spend probably over an hour just talking about this, but she had previously two months before started following a lady on Instagram that taught CPR on young children. So that immediately popped in her head and she

Matt Gilhooly (17:13)
Mm.

Drew Norton (17:27)
She started performing CPR right away. She resuscitated him. And they loaded him and my wife up and took them to the hospital. It was very agonizing. I spent probably the next hour and hour and a half. The police were there. If he passed away, it would be a crime scene, and they'd have to to investigate. So it was probably hour, hour and a half before, which felt like an eternity.

Matt Gilhooly (17:40)
Mm.

Right.

Drew Norton (17:50)
Before I got a call that, he's stable. He's OK. And I headed And then what happened the next two or three days was scary and lots of tests. And we didn't know what had happened. And he was diagnosed with a heart condition. And this specific heart condition led us to believe this accident could happen again at any point in his life. As you can imagine,

You know, the first night we come home, I come out, my wife didn't sleep at all. spent the whole night awake because she was terrified. If I fall asleep, what if he dies on me And I probably spent like 1,500 bucks that night on breathable mattresses and socks that would alert you if his heartbeat dropped.

the next six, eight weeks, we dealt with not knowing what our life was going to be There's a lot of stuff we can explore here, Matt, but to get to the end of this, and then we can go where you'd like to go. It was probably six or eight weeks later. The specific heart condition required genetic testing to confirm it. And when we got the genetic testing back, he didn't have a.

He didn't have the heart condition. was actually misdiagnosed. What we believe now happened is when we found him, when we inspected that crib he was in, there was a broken slat. he also, he'd had a hernia that we knew about and was scheduled for surgery. And we believe what happened is that he rolled over, got his face kind of caught in this pocket, so to speak, where the slat was a little bit broken.

and just couldn't lift his head up out of it and was suffocating to death. And because he'd been, who knows how long he'd been out without oxygen, it just showed all kinds of crazy stuff on the tests. And so the doctor read the test and said, hey, that looks like this particular heart condition. And it was a misdiagnosis and mistake. But it was a couple years of recovery and my wife went through a lot of stress and.

Matt Gilhooly (19:33)
Right.

Right.

Drew Norton (19:51)
The great news is he's a happy, healthy seven-year-old boy now that you'd never be able to tell something happened. But it was really, in a lot of ways, was life-changing and affected a lot of things in our life.

Matt Gilhooly (19:55)
Good. Yeah.

I would imagine something

that scary for anyone, but especially with young, young children like that, it feels like it's like puts a lot of things in perspective. Did that did it shift things for you like all the th I don't know, I'm speaking probably out of turn and maybe for what I'm imagining I would do, but I would feel like nothing that I was worried about before seems quite as important as a moment like this that kind of shocks you into it.

Drew Norton (20:36)
Yeah, there was definitely some of that, definitely some, man, what have I been, what are all the things I've been worried about in my life and are they that big of a deal? I also just, you feel.

I, my heart goes out for any, any parent who's lost a child. We're blessed and lucky that didn't happen. And you just feel so helpless as a parent. You feel so hopeless that there's nothing I can do. This is, and it's, it's tough.

Matt Gilhooly (20:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Well, and then it's it's really tough, I would imagine, as you kind of explained your wife, I'm sure, because she's a human as well, that you naturally like what if, or is it my fault or you know, like and then and then you bring in a a partner who then you're like, do they think that I've done you know, like and so I can imagine how challenging that is. One, you're worried about your son. He's at an age in which

You don't know if there's long term effects for a while, right? I would imagine.

Drew Norton (21:39)
Right, right.

Yeah, we had no idea how this was going to impact him or what. Right, yeah, six months old, yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (21:43)
'Cause he wasn't talking or doing any of those things yet. Right.

So you have all these complex things all happening at once. Like how do you how do you take a step forward? How do you move into the world and like start to quote unquote live again? Is it possible?

Drew Norton (22:02)
Yeah, for me at the time, I was trying to do things to escape it. I felt hopeless. My wife wouldn't leave his side. I remember just like...

Probably two days later, I had a couple sales appointments that were already scheduled. I went and ran the appointments because I was just going crazy sitting in the hospital. And there was a lot of guilt I felt leaving. But I also just, couldn't bear to be sitting, waiting, not knowing. And so it helped me just get my mind off things. My wife had also just bought me for my birthday some tickets to a comedy show.

I went with my brother that weekend and left her at the hospital because, and she was supportive. She didn't tell me I couldn't, but so there was part of me that felt like I'm supposed to be here. And at the same time, I'm like, I'm going to go crazy and lose it if I sit here this whole time.

Matt Gilhooly (22:57)
Yeah.

It's hard because I think I think other people project these things on you in which then we absorb them of like, I shouldn't do this or no, I laughed at something and now I'm a terrible person because I should be scared and and sad. And that's something I learned in in my long failure of grief is like, you know what? If if I watched a TV show and it made me laugh a couple days after my mom died, like

I'm still a human. Like I'm still like there are still things that are gonna happen. And it's it's interesting that you said that though, because I think people shame others for doing that. But I think it's so natural and so important that because you were also kind of protecting yourself in this subconscious way or maybe a conscious way.

Drew Norton (23:45)
Yeah. I mean, no one ever said anything, I thought it. I thought, what is my wife thinking? What are some of my close family members thinking that I'm going out and trying to escape, so to I just felt like I'd go crazy sitting in that room for a few days.

Matt Gilhooly (23:48)
Yeah, yeah.

Of course.

Drew Norton (24:03)
And for my wife, it was very much just guilt and shame that wasn't her fault. It was complete and total accident. But what if I'd looked at the pack and play? What if I put him in the other side? What if I'd gotten him up a few minutes earlier? Just all those questions. Yeah. yeah. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (24:19)
Which can knock you down terribly.

Drew Norton (24:23)
And so mean, was probably most of her anxiety was for my son. Most of my anxiety ended up being, once we knew he was OK, was my anxiety was for my wife. Just, is she OK? Is she going to be fine? And so.

Matt Gilhooly (24:38)
And you have

other little kids that you have to show up for as well, which adds another complexity to your situation.

Drew Norton (24:47)
Yeah. Yeah. So it was.

Matt Gilhooly (24:49)
How old were they in comparison to your son?

Drew Norton (24:53)
They would have been about two, two and a half, and then four or five. So they were all little.

Matt Gilhooly (25:01)
Yeah.

Do they remember that? Maybe the older one?

Drew Norton (25:06)
Our daughter does,

the older one, she remembers some of it. I don't think our other son really does.

Matt Gilhooly (25:14)
Yeah. How so so this I mean this this can ruin people even even though your son survived and was is good now, it can because we tend to as at least as Americans bottle things up and not work through things like how did you make your way to this version of you? 'Cause it it sounds like there's there's a different energy than than you described the previous version of you.

Just in the short conversation I can see you show up differently.

Drew Norton (25:43)
Yeah.

So for my wife, it started with her seeking help, professional counselors and therapists that she was working with for the next year and a half, two years. And that was big. We believe prayer really helped. One of the big realizations I had through all of this, of to tie back to what I said earlier in my story, is all that time I'd spent working on sales training.

I recognized over that time my wife was seeking help and guidance. We had some of the best conversations we'd ever had as a husband and wife. And I remember thinking a lot of the things I'm saying to her or asking her is like from the sales training I've had of listening and asking good questions and helping someone process their thoughts or their feelings or their emotions or their concerns.

Matt Gilhooly (26:32)
Hm. Yeah.

Drew Norton (26:39)
And the big realization I had was one, I started to recognize, man, the work I was doing on myself, even though I thought it was just for money, it's helping my family. It's helping my wife. And two, I recognized that the man I was six months, a year earlier, probably wouldn't have been able to support.

his wife the way that he did through that time and just it lit a fire in me that man I've got to keep working on me. I've got to keep I've got to keep finding and identifying the areas of my life that I'm lacking or or aren't what I want and and work to make those stronger or to make those powerful. I don't I don't know if you can ever fix everything.

Matt Gilhooly (27:12)
Mm-hmm.

Drew Norton (27:32)
And I felt like, there's some specific areas of my life I know I can improve, I know I can make better. And that just led me down a path of continuously looking to improve. And it's led to so many amazing things in my life the last six or seven years since this event.

Matt Gilhooly (27:49)
Yeah. I mean, I think there's something so powerful in the ability to have enough self awareness to figure out what's quote unquote wrong or you need to fix it because I think that only you can determine because the things you want to work on or be better at, you're naturally going to absorb that and become that and and take it over. Whereas I think other people could assign, he needs to do this and that's not as effective. But

seeing the the fruits of your labor, if you will, by studying up you know, happenstance trying to just make more money earlier seems to have worked out. I one thing you said was the listening part. I think it's it's so key to so much of just living on this earth with other people because you can solve so many things by listening carefully.

Drew Norton (28:43)
Yeah, I've come to believe the two best things you can do in communication and part of this, once again, even in sales is asking good questions and being able listen, let people.

let people do some discovery. So not just you finding out things about them, but letting them through asking questions, giving them space, be able to open up and discover things about themselves through just communicating and expressing things that are on their heart, in their mind, is powerful.

Matt Gilhooly (29:13)
But speaking of, what did you discover about yourself that maybe you had previously hidden or pushed down?

Drew Norton (29:21)
Some of this has come since then as I've continued to work, but a lot of it has been just beliefs about myself that aren't necessarily true, beating myself up for things that happened. mean, for example, just as we talked about that example of me kind of fleeing that week that our life was kind of turned upside down.

Matt Gilhooly (29:24)
It's fine.

Drew Norton (29:44)
There's a voice telling me, you're not a good dad, you're not a good father. And starting to recognize that just because I think something doesn't make it true doesn't mean it's even me. And just having the awareness to start identifying and looking at my thoughts. And a lot of work started there. I I eventually...

hired a coach and multiple coaches and different things to continue to work on me and grow. But the most powerful has been, OK, looking at what are the beliefs I have about myself, acknowledging them for what they are, realizing that most of them aren't true, and then doing work to change or reshape the beliefs I have about myself.

Matt Gilhooly (30:27)
I think I mean you say it like it's so easy. It's it's it's not something that we are I mean, at least for myself, I I can't say that we were ever taught that, whether that was formally in school or I mean, even my my dad didn't like instill those. It was very much at least growing up in the eighties and nineties, for me it was very much these this is the guardrail, like this is what you do and

Drew Norton (30:31)
Yeah, it's hard.

No.

Matt Gilhooly (30:55)
This is how you act and this is how you show up in the world. And this is these are the questions you can ask other people and these are the questions you can't ask other people. And so you say it like it's so simple to make these big changes and I guess maybe add a little bit more authenticity to who you are. But it's not easy.

Drew Norton (31:14)
Yeah,

I mean, it's confronting to change things. You often have to confront them. And that's the difficult part is being able to say, I don't believe I deserve things, or to look at yourself and say, hey, I believe I'm a slob and I'm lazy, or I have these beliefs that I'm not a good husband or not a good father.

And it's not fun to get those beliefs out in the open with yourself or especially with anyone else.

Matt Gilhooly (31:47)
Yeah, but it sounds like the the drive to do it was more intrinsic and not I think there are a lot of people when those are put out into the world, there's a I'll prove you wrong mentality, whereas yours feels more I'm gonna prove this to myself that I'm better than this or I can do this, or that's not true.

Drew Norton (32:08)
Yeah, for the most part, it has been that. think there's been a time or two where there's been a chip on the shoulder or something somebody said that's maybe driving something, whether that's healthy or not. So right.

Matt Gilhooly (32:19)
Can't can't solve everything. But I mean, even before it

sounds like there was some things where you're like, Well, if I go out on my own and do this sales thing, I need to prove to everyone that I can do it. I don't know, you didn't say that. I'm putting words in your mouth, but it feels very much like I gotta make a lot of money so I can prove that I didn't make a bad decision.

Drew Norton (32:30)
yeah.

were

plenty of people worried about me walking away from what was a good job to go chase this dream. And so there was definitely some of that for sure. Like, I've to go out and prove to people I can do this and worry about what others were thinking about me. And I think that's something most of us struggle with is.

What does this other person think about me? Or what are the people I'm closest to think about me?

Matt Gilhooly (33:04)
Yeah, I wonder what did they think of you as you started changing? Did they were there noticing people notice things? Did you lose friends? Did like was what was that dynamic like as you were kind of reshaping yourself?

Drew Norton (33:17)
Well, most importantly, I'm lucky and blessed to have a wife who's always believed in me, probably at times more than I've believed in myself. I know why and sometimes I don't know why. I know what she sees in me and there times where I'm I'm surprised that you see this in So I'm just very, grateful for that. For a lot of our, my parents weren't worried. Her parents were more probably because I'm.

I'm not their son and she's their daughter, quickly saw that it was a great change and it was working for us. But there were, I found as you work on yourself, as you grow, as you decide, hey, I want to be around, I've tried to eliminate people in my life that speak negatively and talk bad about themselves or others and sometimes that means, hey, I'm not gonna spend as much time with a friend I used

Matt Gilhooly (34:05)
Mm-hmm.

Drew Norton (34:12)
or you know unless we want to change that. It doesn't mean I don't love those people anymore, I do and I've just become very careful about who I associate with and who I surround myself because I want to keep growing and progressing and I found that works the best and fastest when you're surrounded by those doing the same.

Matt Gilhooly (34:31)
Yeah, I I think that's important to just note. I think there's something where we as people in general, like have this fear of letting go of friends or letting go of people not letting go, but you know, like as you said, distancing or choosing to who you're gonna be around more frequently. I think there's something really healthy about determining what's good for you. And it's not in this n like you said, it's not in this negative, like I hate you, we're never gonna talk again kind of mentality.

But rather, you know, I'm just gonna show up differently around you when we you know, it we're not gonna spend as much time together or you whatever that may be, but there's a healthy conversation that can happen there. 'Cause they have to find their own tribe too, you know. And so I think I think that's something to normalize. Maybe it is happening.

Drew Norton (35:17)
And I

believe that part of what you can expect going through that is that there's sometimes this feeling of like I'm kind of alone as I'm going to do. I'm leaving others.

behind or I'm separating myself from them. what I found is, because I used to think, I'm from a small town and a small community and I'm able to work remotely. So the community I live in is 30, 40,000 people and we're a couple hours outside of the Phoenix and Tucson area in Arizona. So still a very small area.

But I used to think I'm the crazy entrepreneur kind of guy. And as I go out into the world, I find more of them. And as I've been more vocal about what I do and who I am, I find those even in my community where I thought there weren't many. I find myself surrounding myself more with these people that think and believe the same way I do.

Matt Gilhooly (36:11)
Yeah. Was there ever a time in your life that you showed up

Like you were wearing a mask. I guess you were, 'cause you were not showing people how you were feeling inside. But was there ever a time where you felt like I gotta show up a certain way around these people?

Drew Norton (36:24)
Yeah, I'm sure if I looked close, it probably still happens at times. Yeah, right. I would say of the work I've done is realizing that I had for a long time, I didn't want to be recognized or and a feeling that probably picked on at times as a kid.

Matt Gilhooly (36:29)
Mm-hmm.

There's a point to that question. So

Drew Norton (36:51)
And I think I just learned, if I'm quiet and I don't put myself out there, I'm safe. And I've come to realize if I'm not willing to be open and vulnerable and share powerfully my experiences with others, then I can't make the impact I want to make in my community, in the world, with other people.

Matt Gilhooly (37:09)
Yeah. Well, you

you can't find your people either if you're not showing you know the the point of that question in my mind, drawing those connections was like the fact that you are showing up in your community and w fully you as much as possible as you can. That's the reason you're connecting with all these people that you never would have imagined or even down the street from you or whatever it may be. Whereas in the past, if you show up as you think other people want you to show up.

in that space, you're not finding the right people. In my opinion. I mean, I've done it.

Drew Norton (37:43)
Yeah,

and just to be open as I'm thinking about that question, I think the area that I wear the mask the most is sometimes around family or people. You can choose your friends. You can't choose your family. You can love your family. So sometimes it's maybe stepping back a little bit because I want to keep those relationships. yeah, so.

Matt Gilhooly (37:57)
Right.

Yeah, that's a tricky one. That is a tricky

one. I I have a f I have feelings about that. just in my own experience, you know, after my mom died, her family just kind of they were selfish and therefore not really trying to continue a relationship with me. And I tried. I tried for twenty years to build a relationship with

my mom's mom that wasn't one sided. And my mom had a twin brother. I spoke with him for the first time when I was thirty. And at some point I was just like there's it's not worth the energy because it's one sided, you know, and so it's it's tricky because it's like their family, like they're the my only attachment to my mom and and her side of the family. But at some point I had to protect myself and not show up in

in that fake way of like, look, we're related, let's be friends. So that's a tricky one, but I think it's it's right. I think if you cherish that relationship, sometimes you hide a little bit of right.

Drew Norton (39:14)
Sometimes you tone things down that

you would openly share with everyone else to keep those relationships intact.

Matt Gilhooly (39:19)
Yeah.

Yeah. So what part

of your journey made you wanna do what you do now? Like where in your journey were you like, Okay, I'm in a good space. Maybe I can help others.

Drew Norton (39:32)
Yeah, from that time, just to highlight a couple things that happened afterwards, as I continued working on me, I went to lead the company I was at in sales and then built the largest sales team inside the organization.

Matt Gilhooly (39:36)
Yeah.

Drew Norton (39:47)
started working on my health and lost 100 pounds. So I just started everything I just kept saying, I'm going to get good at this, I'm going get good at this. I was focusing and I was winning. But even to that point I made earlier about, were talking about with this idea that I'll be happy when, I was very much still seeking a lot of external.

Matt Gilhooly (39:50)
Nice.

Drew Norton (40:10)
reward and status. And those things just weren't paying off. And so some of the moments where I was making the most money and having the most success I ever had, I still felt very much empty. And that just led me to keep saying, OK, I've got more work to do if that's how I feel. so I

I have always been in leadership roles and positions. My favorite part of that, especially in the sales world was helping the people I worked with level up and make more money and unlock new possibilities in their life financially. I'd always loved that. That was one of my favorite things. fact, there were a couple of young men that I was their church leader when they were in high school and they came to work for me in college.

went from minimum wage to making six figures, and it was just really rewarding. And so I just have always loved building people and working with people. And so I was at a point where I felt like the growth was starting to be limited where I was at, loved the company I worked for, and loved the sales teams I had, and didn't see a vision of where it was going to be able to continue for me.

Matt Gilhooly (41:04)
Yeah.

Drew Norton (41:26)
And as I was getting some coaching and work on myself, the idea came that, maybe I can come do this for others. And so I went with a coaching and consulting company and started doing sales training and coaching, mostly with financial advisors, and did that for about six months. Even when I was leading sales teams, I was 1099. I very much had a lot of freedom and flexibility in how I did things.

this coaching company, they wanted me to be more of an employee. So I went independent the last couple of years and then we got a, with a couple great friends and partners decided, hey, we want to build something for men. And so we launched the Abundant Man project and.

And a lot of that was, I've just always had this love of helping people. And now it's just turned to like, I want to help men specifically be better husbands, better fathers, better leaders in their homes and their businesses.

Matt Gilhooly (42:26)
Yeah. Well, and it's like you said early when we started the conversation is like you're kind of doing a lot of this stuff for that late twenties version of Drew who was lacking certain areas and feeling so. So do you feel like when you're developing things for it or you're helping other people, do you see that younger version of yourself?

Drew Norton (42:48)
yeah, every day. Often that's the first lens of like, hey, what could I have used? In fact...

What I often say is we have four pillars we focus on, faith, family, fitness, and finances. And I felt like after this accident and after a lot of the success that the finance area was great in my life and everything else was mediocre or bad. And so I felt successful on paper and empty inside and started working on specifically on those other areas and just found a lot of happiness as I put that focus on me and changed the focus of my life.

Matt Gilhooly (43:10)
Mm-hmm.

Drew Norton (43:21)
I can't remember what your question was now, but that's just been, hey, I want to help. Yeah, just want to help men in whatever. This is my belief, but my belief is often, and this could probably apply to women too, but if a man's not happy, usually there's something off in one of those four areas. You could maybe classify some others.

Matt Gilhooly (43:25)
Seeing the younger version of yourself.

Mm-hmm.

Drew Norton (43:42)
So it's like, want men to be abundant in those areas without feeling like they've got to trade off one for the other.

Matt Gilhooly (43:49)
I you don't have to answer this, but I'm curious if you're seeing like trends in like what men these days in twenty twenty six are are showing up feeling like they are lacking the most of. Is there is there a particular area in this year?

Drew Norton (44:07)
Some of the statistics I've been looking at, which continues to be validated as I work and talk with men, is men are probably lonelier than they've ever been, which is interesting because you think in today's world with social media and the ability to connect with people, how easy it is. I don't have the statistics right in front of me, Matt, but one I was looking at the other day is something like.

It's like less than the percentages I'm gonna butcher, but something like less than 20 % of men, and it might even be less than 10, have more than six close there's a lot of, I'm sure COVID is a part of this. I'm sure the digital world we're in is part of this, but it's just made it easy to.

Matt Gilhooly (44:35)
Just make it up.

Yeah, I've seen that, especially younger men.

Drew Norton (44:59)
to feel like you're connected without actually having real connection with people.

Matt Gilhooly (45:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, 'cause you feel like I mean, you can just think of social media. You feel like you know what so and so's life is like because you've seen their latest trip and their promotions and all the things that their their kids are growing up and whatever it is, and you don't you feel like you've had the conversation with them, but you actually haven't because you're just watching from afar. I think a lot of that happens. It's interesting when you were talking about that. I was thinking about my dad, and he has a fantastic group.

Of adult friends that he's been friends with since he was five years old or whatever it may be. And I think a lot of it is because he grew up having to do things with people outside. You know, we didn't have the the social media aspect. We didn't have a digital we didn't bear, you know, like the phone calls were expensive. Like they were they just had to go outside and go play ball or do whatever. And he's still friends with like people he played baseball with when he was seven.

Drew Norton (45:50)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (45:58)
And he's maintained these relationships and I think it's be I it has to be that current generations aren't doing that as much, right? So yeah.

Drew Norton (46:06)
Yeah, yeah, it's a trend for sure that

men have less friends than they did 20, 30 years ago.

Matt Gilhooly (46:12)
Yeah. Yeah,

and I would imagine that what you're doing for them maybe is helping them open up so they can be vulnerable and make friends that

Drew Norton (46:23)
Yeah, part

of it's having a brotherhood. And part of it's like, I spoke with a man in our group this week. And he's made so much progress the last six months in his life. And he has one area that he continues to keep slipping up on. And just shared with me how he, as we were talking, just had this realization that every time in a relationship with a woman,

Matt Gilhooly (46:25)
Yeah.

Drew Norton (46:48)
when I have been down or You know messing up. I feel like if when I go to her vulnerable She leaves or she she's hey I'm you're not protecting and providing if if you open up and and so he's kind of associated that with hey if I share things I'm struggling with I'm gonna be abandoned by by others and

And so part of this group that's been great for him is having a space where it's like, man, I've got other men that I can reach out to and can actually understand the weight of the things I'm going through, what I'm dealing with in my life, at the same time where I'm not saying don't talk to your wife or your girlfriend or your partner. And there's just things that, maybe this isn't politically correct, but there are things that.

Matt Gilhooly (47:30)
Don't ever tell them how you're feeling.

Drew Norton (47:41)
Sometimes the opposite sex aren't just going to understand about each other or fully realize. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (47:44)
Yeah, I would imagine that women would say the same thing that women have their

close girlfriends that talk about whatever. But yeah, I definitely wouldn't say shut out, shut out anyone. I think we should be as open as we can be. And to your point, the whole communication and whatnot that you had with your wife when she was struggling and you were struggling and you know, just listening and having these really deep and important conversations. I think they're important.

And I think we have to find a place to get there, but maybe it's not everything. You know, maybe it is. You find that brotherhood, or you find someone that that has similar feelings about things and you have that conversation. Or you find someone that has opposite and figure out how you exist in the world with someone that has opposite feelings of you. And how do we move through that? I think it's I think it's really interesting and very needed what you're doing. I so kudos to you for you know helping people in the way that.

younger Drew probably needed someone to do.

Drew Norton (48:39)
Yeah.

Well, and if I was.

If I was to look at younger Drew, he was alone. He didn't have a lot of close men around him at that time of his life. I mean, he had good friends from his lifetime, but I'm naturally someone who's kind of a hermit by nature who won't go out and hang out and party and go do extracurricular activities with others. And there's a part of me that I think likes to tell myself, don't need that. I'm OK. And what I've come to

realizes just having good relationships with others is so important. One thing I love to say is this idea of belong, believe, become. When you feel like you belong to a group, and especially when you see this group doing great things, it helps you believe more in yourself, believe that you can do something greater. And when you believe more in yourself, you often become something greater naturally.

Matt Gilhooly (49:34)
I like that.

Would you what would you say to that younger Drew right now? I know you've probably done this in all sorts of exercises, but what would you say to that Drew who was driving up on that moment before you actually knew what was happening?

Drew Norton (49:50)
Yeah, if it was that day.

Matt Gilhooly (49:51)
Mm-hmm.

'Cause you're about to go through stuff that you couldn't have described to yourself, so

Drew Norton (50:01)
I would have told him you can do it first and believe in yourself and just focus on what's in front of you. Focus on the now. Don't worry about the next week or the next six months or the next year. Just be focused where you're at.

Matt Gilhooly (50:22)
Yeah. And I think that I mean, it would probably work if a future you said that to you right now, in a lot of ways, right? Like here and now is important. We can't just dismiss it for what's coming in the future. I mean, we should think about it and we should plan for it, but at the same time, I'm the o I'm like the not the person that you talk to in this is cause like my mom died at thirty two. So for me, thirty two was like I didn't have any plans for after thirty two, 'cause it just in my mind it was like

That's just when it's over. So I didn't even like dream or plan or things like that. So now it's like bonus, bonus time here in the in my forties. So I get to I get to there was no map that I created for myself, which is one scary because I didn't have a map and I didn't dream about things, but also like it creates a blank slate and things that I can and and can on a whim do if I want to. So, you know. I don't know why I said that, but here we are. Me telling you that. Anyway, thank you for for

Drew Norton (51:00)
You

Matt Gilhooly (51:22)
for sharing your story in this way. I I have one last question. I'm curious if what do you think is the biggest difference between Drew Now and Drew before? Like if you could sum it up in a couple of words.

Drew Norton (51:35)
He's present. He very much still likes to chase and to build and to dream. And he also recognizes all he has is today. All he has is what's right in front of him.

Matt Gilhooly (51:53)
Do you celebrate your wins?

Drew Norton (51:55)
Yes, sometimes I was just talking with a really good friend the other day. It's like sometimes we don't stop and celebrate these wins enough.

Matt Gilhooly (52:02)
Nope. Yeah. No, sometimes we're like, okay, what's next? Let's go. Yeah. So I think that's important. Celebrate your wins. If people are digging your story or your vibe or want to know more about your what your company offers or just want to tell you their story, like what's the best way to find you and get in your orbit?

Drew Norton (52:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, so two ways. On social media, I'm the everyday sales leader. Once again, my background is in sales and leadership. And so you can find me on pretty much every platform under that handle. Or if it's a man looking for a brotherhood and help, it's a...

abundantmanproject.com. You can go there and access what we have and we do a mix of coaching, retreats, and group coaching throughout the year. So we can come to our one days or you can be a part of our year-long membership.

Matt Gilhooly (52:55)
I love that.

I certainly encourage people to do that. We'll put the links in the show notes so that it's easy to access. But I do I encourage people that maybe they hear your story and it validates something in their experience or maybe they haven't shared something. And so I I l I love it if listeners reach out to the guests and say, Hey, you know, when you said this part made me think of this part. So hope you don't mind, but I'm telling people to connect with you.

Drew Norton (53:17)
Yeah, please.

Yeah, I would hope if you have a listener that's going through something that they would reach out. Would love to be in the air to listen.

Matt Gilhooly (53:27)
Yeah, and you know this, the the power of sharing your story for the first time or multiple times and and what that does for yourself to get it out of your head and to process it out loud or on paper or whatever it may be. And so that's one of my small hopes is that people are encouraged to share with whoever. It doesn't have to be on a podcast, but they can share with the people in their lives or some random stranger on the internet.

Drew Norton (53:52)
Well, I'm grateful for you, Matt, and this podcast because I've shared this story multiple times and we've talked about things I've never talked about about this today. And so I just appreciate that. And to your point, there's power in sharing your story. There was a time where you couldn't get me to talk about any of this. And if I did, I'd have been a big mess. And now it's something powerful I want to share.

Matt Gilhooly (54:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I mean, as hard as some parts of our story parts of our stories are, they got us here. So what can we do with them? You know, and I said it before, I struggled for two decades and so now I'm like now I'm like making up time and just trying to have these conversations that with my own curiosity because I think this is how we make the world better by listening to each other, by talking to each other, by

understanding each other, even if we don't live the same life. That's the cool thing, right? There's so much that we can relate to each other, even if our lives are wildly different. So I'm blessed to to be able to have these conversations and people like you to just come on here and go where the conversation goes. I appreciate that.

Drew Norton (54:52)
Right, yeah.

Yeah, no, I'm sure if we talked, we'd find things we could disagree on. And there's a lot you can tell because of experiences that can bring us close to each other.

Matt Gilhooly (55:15)
Right. And

and the things that we differ on would be fine. Right. Like I think if we understand who we are as people and we love that about the people around us, then we can differ on certain things. It's fine. Well, again, I appreciate you. I appreciate the people listening. I am going to say goodbye and I'll be back next week or in a couple of days with a brand new episode and we'll see you then. Thanks again, Drew.

Drew Norton (55:21)
Yeah, yeah, it'd be okay.

Absolutely, yeah.

Awesome, thank you, Matt.