Jon Gustin Is Wide Awake

Jon Gustin is tired. But he's not complaining. To the contrary, Gustin, better known as The Tired Dad, holds up his fatigue as a “badge of honor that we wear because we're showing up in all areas.” Tiredness is his brand, sure, but it’s also a conversation starter — a way to assess and unpack the strain that kids, relationships, work, and showing up for your family can put on you.

Gustin’s social feed is something of a sacred space. There’s a melancholy confessional aspect to it, in which he offers statements like, “I’m constantly thinking about what I’m leaving behind…” Yes, it’s a familiar sentiment, but one that we rarely dare to face straight-on. In this sense, The Tired Dad feels nearly dystopian, like Gustin is playing the role of the protagonist in Lois Lowry’s The Giver, the Receiver of Memory who takes on the pains that those in society do not face. But then, out of darkness, there is Gustin as motivational speaker, coach, and teacher. In facing the darkness, he finds the light. He ends most posts with a mantra such as, “Keep showing up.”

Gustin has taken his social media philosophizing and translated it to a book, The Tired Dad: 100 Reflections on Showing Up for What Matters Most, out now. Inside, you’ll find fleshed-out contemplations and personal histories and, of course, plenty of advice on being a man, sobriety, marriage, fatherhood, and vulnerability.

Just a week out from his book release, I had the chance to talk with Gustin. He didn’t come ready to push his book — with the influencer energy you might expect — but with his signature sincerity that, I realized, is part of his practice. "Vulnerability is freedom," Gustin tells me shortly into our discussion. "And not only is it freedom for yourself to be vulnerable, but it's freedom for other people because they feel less alone." Here, to help us all feel a little less alone, is our full conversation.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Tell me about your dad.

Jon Gustin: I like to bring up the fact that my dad entered the Marine Corps at the ripe age of 17. His parents had to sign for him and he was in Vietnam by the time he was 18 and he spent just over two years there. It's hard to wrap my mind around that.

The number one thing he's taught me is character. And he learned that from his dad, who was in World War II in the Navy. I come from a very military background, very structured, and with men that don’t show much emotion. I think I've seen my dad cry about five times, and three in maybe the past couple years. But he always taught me about character, saying stuff like, "If you say you're going to do something, do it." True character is when no one's looking, you always do the right thing. And not only did my dad and grandpa say that stuff, they showed it every single day in their actions. If he said he was going to play catch with me or go to something, he would make it happen. So that's kind of my dad in a nutshell.

In the book, it’s clear you held your grandfather in great esteem. Tell me about him as a role model.

When I was writing this book, my grandfather passed away, at the age of 99. And that passage I wrote in the book was right after he passed. Towards the end of his life, he was so unfiltered, but in a good way. He almost got more emotional and more expressive because I don't think he had that shield up anymore. And it was just kind of, he didn't care. And the way he talked about my grandmother and their marriage and just how much they loved each other is like a storybook.

"If you say you're going to do something, do it.”

My whole life, my grandfather was just a man of wisdom. He knew so much. He read the newspaper every day. He would read two books in a day. It was insane. So he was just full of wisdom and insight. And he didn't care about the stupid stuff in life, like the material things. It was always strictly like, who you are as a man, like truly, who are you?

There's so many moments with my grandfather and the way he was. It was a different generation. So not too much expressive emotion there, but very, very kind. He always treated people so well. He was always there for us. They bought a motor home after retirement and they traveled everywhere to see all the grandkids and the great-grandkids and the whole family. And that's how they spent their money and their time. And they spent their money helping people out with donations. They would get audited all the time because they donated so much of their money that the government didn't believe in them. So that's who they were.

I'm wondering what you think of those men out there who have not had such role models. Absenteeism is a stubborn problem in this country ...

I think fathers are such a vital, vital role in the dynamic of family. But even with the absenteeism, I know some fellow friends and stuff that had horrible relationships with their father or didn't have them at all, but they are the greatest fathers themselves. And they really are using that as motivation to just put their foot down and break that curse and to show up for the first time in their family — to be that shift in generational trauma, I guess. And it's weird to view myself as a role model just because I'm not perfect and I have made so many mistakes in my life early on, but I think I do want to be.

“Vulnerability is freedom and not only is it freedom for yourself to be vulnerable, but it's freedom for other people because they feel less alone.”

As I say in the book, vulnerability is freedom and not only is it freedom for yourself to be vulnerable, but it's freedom for other people because they feel less alone. If you can express yourself, then other dads, other people will say, "Oh, I thought I was alone in that. But this person's expressing that. I must not be crazy." And it kind of frees them up. So if anything, I want to be just a role model to be vulnerable in your story and that we don't always have it figured out and that the point is not to figure it all out. The point is to be on a journey forever and to always be progressing towards something and to lead with wisdom and intentionality to be role models to your kids and as a side effect, to be a role model to others.

Vulnerability is at the core of what you put out there. Given that, I wonder what you think of stoicism. It's historically seen as a masculine trait and while is has been vilified for the repression of emotion, it seems to be getting a second look, especially with so many kids struggling with independence, perseverance, and resilience. I'm curious as to what you think about it and when to go vulnerable and when to go Stoic.

I sat down with Ryan Holiday not too long ago and I've always read his stuff. And before I kind of knew Ryan Holiday and his message of stoicism, the modern message of stoicism, I did just think it was this overly masculine thing — like, we are statues, we're Greek Gods who must keep chipping away. And it wasn't until I started to really dive into it and learn that, at least what Ryan preaches, that there is vulnerability in stoicism. Perseverance is great, but I still think there's an aspect of saying, "Hey, you know what? I'm defeated and I don't know." It’s okay if you don't have the answers. I think men want to fix everything and have the answers and they feel like they're dumb or they are weak if they don't have the answers. And I think that vulnerability of saying, "I don't have the answers."

And there's some extremes to stoicism. When the world is gladiator brutal, when Marcus Aurelius put his kids to bed every night as if he's never going to see them again. I don't think it's healthy to have that extreme a mentality. The whole memento mori, I wrote about it in the book — I want to think about it a little differently. I don't want to think about dying all the time. Sometimes I want to think about dying at 100 and living like I'm going to live to 100 because as I said in the book, if you told me I was going to die tomorrow, yes, I would live my day today a lot differently, but chances are I'm probably not going to die tomorrow. I think men want this black and white way of thinking, and sometimes it's just not that way.

And that's, again, men want to have this identity, right? Warrior, Spartan, Stoic, man. We want to be part of this group. I listen to Joe Rogan. I do jiu-jitsu. I do cold plunges, which I do all of those, but it's not my entire identity. Sometimes it can be your identity masking your true identity, your insecurities, your ego and everything like that.

“The manosphere is birthed from insecurity. It's birthed from lack of identity.”

Speaking to those extremes and that black and white thinking, what do you make of the more extreme corners of the manosphere?

I mean, the manosphere is birthed from insecurity. It's birthed from lack of identity. I speak from experience because in my early 20s ... I guess I was part of the manosphere before it was called that. I thought, I'm going to be a man. I'm going to view myself very highly and I'm going to be egotistical, but think I'm being manly. And there were mentors in my life too that were like that.

And that I saw these men that were just powerful, but they were something, there was a red flag that I was like, they seem so insecure. Seem like they're overcompensating for something. And then they don't seem like they're like the greatest of husbands. And I was young, I was in my 20s so, but I could see so easily how impressionable young men can be on this manosphere type mentality because they're just looking for identity and they're so insecure and they really don't know how to talk to girls.

So if they just view girls as less than, then they can have power over them. And if they just become successful with money, then they can have power over people and there's no substance to it, but it's a search for identity of what masculinity is. And when you see this facade of masculinity, these guys with deep voices that talk real loud and are on steroids and it could like, okay, yeah, that's what I want.

I look back on it, the things I valued as early 20s and now 20 years later, I mean, it's not even close. I'm like, "That's not what I value at all." Now, I value time and that's the greatest currency. Money is important clearly to an extent, but the obsession with money is empty and there's no cars that are going to fulfill you. There's no amount of women that's going to fulfill you. Actually, it does the opposite. And until you see that for yourself and other people or maybe experience it yourself, you realize that, yeah, this isn't masculine at all. This is weakness because, you're actually very weak and you’re overcompensating for all your insecurities.

Growth is hard. Do you see yourself as an expert in parenting, masculinity, relationships?

No, I'm not an expert in any of it. Expert is a funny word. To call yourself an expert makes you feel like you've reached the end. And I don't believe that there is an end until the end of there's always something to learn, there's always something to get better at. There's always something new to read. There's always more information. There's always something. So no, I don't consider myself an expert at all. I'm learning as I go.

Relationships get hard when you have kids. I think that's a fact of life and something you address a lot. For those newly introducing kids to their marriage, where can they start when the going gets hard?

Kids changed marriage completely. There are a lot of curve-balls there, but communication is huge. Kill your ego. Ego serves absolutely no purpose in a relationship. Meet the other person where they are, rather than trying to fix them. The other person's not going to fix themselves for you. You're going to fix yourself for the other person. Both of you fix yourselves to meet the other person, right, and to accept the other person and to work with the other person as teammates, not as competitors, because in competition you'll lose. It's just a lose-lose. Nobody wins in that.

So I think it's effective communication, vulnerable communication. Because it's not just communicating — just complaining about the other person, that's not effective communication. Effective communication is where the other person doesn't get defensive. You're not attacking them. You're trying to solve a problem. And once you kill your ego and stop being so defensive to everything, you guys can start communicating in an effective way, and then that's where the growth happens.

I see these days more men on the playgrounds, more men parenting in public spaces. But I still don’t see, well, full participation in parenting. I'm part of the PTA, for example, and am often the only dad in the room. Sometimes I go to the pediatrician and am the only dad taking my kids there. What would you like to push men to do more of?

Well, just to get out of that idea that your only job is a financial provider. You work and when you're done with work, you're done with work. I want fathers to view their role as a dad just as important, probably more important than their work job, than their job title. When you come home, you need to put on your other cap, which is dad, and that's your most important role. So the work doesn't stop. It's why we're so tired because the work never stops.

My wife and I are transplants. I'm from California. She's from Ohio, and we met in Tennessee and started our family here. Nobody around, no village per se. And I think sometimes it was so hard that I got resentful of other people who had helpful grandparents nearby.

“That's the badge of honor of a tired dad, that we wear because we're showing up in all areas.”

But now I look back on it and realize it made me a better dad to force myself to wake up so early in the morning and then come home and watch my kids and then go back to work and play this tag team with my wife. It was draining and hard, but now I look at it as kind of a blessing. Because first of all, I have a ton of memories with my kids growing up. I think my kids will think I was with them 24/7 because I am with them so much. There are times when, okay, I'm canceling my clients. I'm losing money today because my kid is sick. I got to take him to the pediatrician. My wife can't take off work. It is what it is. And that's just made me so much of a better dad.

And that's the badge of honor of a tired dad, that we wear because we're showing up in all areas. We are showing up to work, but we're showing up until we put our heads down.