The Corvus Effect

Ep. 74: Stop Providing, Start Being Present with Drew Deraney

• Scott Raven • Episode 74

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Episode Links:

Profit Compassion - https://profitcompassion.com

From Caving In To Crushing It Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/@profitcompassion

I'll Have What She's Having: Memoir of a Reformed People Pleaser - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1J5MLF8

LinkedIn: Drew Deraney - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewderaney/

Summary:

In this episode of The Corvus Effect, Drew Deraney shares his powerful transformation from workaholic executive to present father after his son Matthew delivered a life-changing message. Drew breaks down his Man Number One, Two, and Three framework, explaining how fathers move from blind spots to victim mentality to authentic leadership. His journey through natural disasters, health challenges, and caregiving for a son with autism shaped his unique perspective on what it means to truly show up.

Drew reveals why most men tie their identity to external circumstances, the danger of operating on autopilot, and how societal conditioning prevents fathers from asking for help. He teaches practical strategies for celebrating small wins, reframing adversity as opportunity, and why self-care isn't selfish but selfless. Drew's approach to helping caregiving families find balance while building their own authentic leadership offers a roadmap for fathers who want to stop just providing and start being present.

Show Notes:

02:00 The Defining Moment: Dad, You Weren't There

04:30 Man Number One: Living in Blind Spots

08:11 Finding Your Internal Why

10:25 Man Number Two: Awareness as Victim

15:04 Special Needs Caregiving and Self-Care

21:07 Celebrating Progress: Two Steps Forward

24:24 Man Number Three: Authentic Leadership

27:49 Advice for Providing Fathers

36:21 Choose to Write Your Own Story

Intro

Scott Raven: Welcome to The Corvus Effect, where we explore what it takes to succeed professionally and truly enhance all parts of your life. I'm Scott Raven, Fractional COO and your host. Each episode we go behind the scenes with leaders who've mastered the delicate harmony of growing their professional endeavors while protecting what matters most. Ready to transform from Chief Everything Officer to achieving integration in all facets of your life? Let's soar!


Guest Introduction

Scott Raven: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Corvus Effect. Today we are joined by Drew Deraney, the caregiver, family health coach and host of From Caving In to Crushing It podcast.

Drew helps fathers stop providing at the expense of presence, and he has the personal story to prove it in terms of how his son caused a major transformation in his life. As an author of the bestselling memoir I'll Have What She's Having and guide to countless caregiving families, Drew has mastered the art of breaking down walls to authentic leadership and his transformational framework where he describes Man Number One, Man Number Two, and Man Number Three is sure to resonate with fathers who are hoping to be the best holistic men that they can possibly be. So Drew, welcome to the podcast.

Drew Deraney: Scott, thank you so much, man. It's so great to be here.

Scott Raven: No worries, no worries. Now, I alluded to this in the hook. I'm just gonna dive right into it, and we're gonna focus on your seminal awakening moment when your son Matthew uttered these words: "Dad, you were home, but you weren't there."


The Defining Moment: Dad, You Weren't There

Scott Raven: Talk to me in terms of that moment in time, not just in terms of the shock, but then how that became the catalyst to your own personal transformation.

Drew Deraney: Absolutely. I remember that moment very clearly. And it's funny, I'll put this into context because when Matthew told me that, he was reminiscing and letting me know what it was like when I was working all those hours at the hospital and I'd come home late. Back then I was working, I don't know, 12-hour days at a hospital in New York City and I'd get home late and I would intend to focus on the kids, right?

So fast forward to when he told me that he was going over some of the stuff that he remembers happening as a kid, before we got the divorce and everything. And I remember me asking him, "Well, can you give me a specific?" And he said those things that when you were home, you weren't home.

And so I understood what he meant, that I was physically home. But he could - you know, it's interesting though, because when he said that to me, I was trying to count back to think how old he was. And you're talking potentially 10, 11 years old, and that's when it hit me that, wow, at that age they remember so much. They see so much, they sponge so much, and they learn from their parents' behaviors. And so when he said that to me, right away, I said, now I understand what you're talking about. And it wasn't my intention. I'm sorry I acted like that and thank you for telling me. And so what that made me realize is I want to be present now all the time, as much as I could be in the present moment.

And so that to me was like, I am so happy he told me that. Because if he didn't tell me that, that may not have been - I wouldn't have had that kick in the pants to be more aware of what's going on right now, you know?

Scott Raven: Yeah. Yeah. And I understand from our conversation offline that that was part of a nine-month compression. We're not gonna get into-

Drew Deraney: Right, right, right, right.

Scott Raven: But you had this, that, or the other come up all at the same time. It was a tsunami, right? But ultimately, that this now gave you True North towards your style of authentic leadership through presence. How did that positioning of True North come about?


Man Number One: Living in Blind Spots

Drew Deraney: Well, when he said that, the first thing I thought of is I was blindsided, and that was always what I would say when I didn't see something coming and I was saying it too often. So right there I was thinking that was the man I was - the man with blind spots. So that's where it started, where I had this epiphany that, all right, I was the man who had blind spots. I forgive myself for that because that's the tools - I didn't have tools back then.

Scott Raven: And that's not easy. It's not easy to forgive yourself.

Drew Deraney: No, it's not. So I didn't really regret being that way because that's who I was at the time and I remember what was going on. So then that became Man Number One in my model - the man who doesn't even notice what's going on around him. And so I said, okay, then there's gotta be a next step. And the next step was great because at least I started becoming aware of the impending adversity, right? So being aware is always that first step. So that gets you out of the blind spot moment. That was pretty cool.

Scott Raven: Right, right. Now you talk about this as you're alluding to your Man One, Man Two, Man Three framework. The transition from Man One to Man Two is the catalyst is awareness, and the end state is the awakening, breaking down the internal walls, particularly for men. Why is it so hard to have a true awakening?


Why Men Struggle With Awakening

Drew Deraney: I think we're taught by society and also growing up that we should just do it. Just do things. Don't explain it. Don't show emotion. Just suck it up and man up and be the man.

Scott Raven: Man up. Embrace the suck. You know? Suck it up, buttercup. Yep. We've heard it all.

Drew Deraney: So if we're taught to do that, we never learn or think it's necessary to learn how to ask for help or how to do anything different. It's just move forward and we end up moving on autopilot. It's really our subconscious just tells us just go.

Scott Raven: Right, right. Now, like you said, it's not a skill that men are traditionally taught, yet you put concerted effort into it to become what you are today in terms of that guide for caregiver families and your podcast and et cetera, right? But I'm sure that this wasn't something that you were just able to do, that this was a muscle that you had to develop over time.

Drew Deraney: It was, because when you're not focusing on the present moment, then what are you focusing on? And it can only be one of two things or two things simultaneously, and that's the past or the future. So when I started really starting to think about how do I get out of these blind spot things, it's like all these clichés about it's right in front of your face. Yeah, yeah. You hear that, and so I'm like, you know what? Let me give this a shot. And so I started talking to, quote unquote, experts about how do you keep in the present moment? And I started to learn about meditation and gratitude and forgiveness and desire.

I read the book Think and Grow Rich. And I read it like three times, underlining and realizing that I had much more control over my life than I thought I did. And so to get from Man Number One to Man Number Two, I realized it had to be my why. What is the clarity of purpose in my life? I have to have clarity of the purpose in my life.


Finding Your Internal Why

Drew Deraney: So I always focus my why on external circumstances, as most men do. Our self-identity is about our relationship with our significant other and our profession, right? And that's kind of dangerous and unhealthy because those two things are technically out of our control. We can only do what we can do, right? We can't control what the outcome is or what the result is. So when external circumstances don't go our way, and we view our self-identity based on those external circumstances and how they shift, we're gonna be moving around and not being able to catch that goal because it keeps moving on us.

So I really thought, look, Drew, look deep inside of you and really get to like why you actually are here on this earth. Like what the heck are you here for? Right? And when I started to think about the positive aspects of who I am, it's integrity, honesty, truth, authenticity - that's who I am. Okay?

So if I know that's me at the core and I know that I was wearing masks back then-

Scott Raven: Right.

Drew Deraney: I was thinking, wait a second, if I'm just who I am and I don't care what other people think about me, I'm gonna start to attract the people I want to attract, right? And so I did craft my why. And I believe in bucking the status quo. I believe in finding a better way to do things and to share that with others.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Drew Deraney: And so when I do that, I impact positively the people I'm working with. And so I started to turn into Man Number Three, but you gotta get to Man Number Two first. So before I had the authenticity piece, I did find clarity of purpose in my life. I thought it was my family - there's still external, right? So with that though, I started looking at adversity. I was aware. I saw the adversity. So no more Man Number One. But Man Number Two is the man who sees the adversity, yet he considers himself the victim.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.


Man Number Two: Awareness as Victim

Drew Deraney: You can't just go from Man Number One to Man Number Three. You've gotta experience Man Number Two - blame game, victim, don't take accountability, blah blah. At least you're aware. But I was then, at that point, I was blaming the wife for the divorce and the boss for the job loss and myself for my son having issues and God for taking my father too soon, right?

So that's Man Number Two. And you want to try to shorten that. So what I needed to do - again, now I'm in the present moment because I'm learning all this stuff with the meditation, the gratitude, the forgiveness - is I've gotta take this adversity and stop seeing it as a barrier, and I've gotta see it as an opportunity instead.

Well, how do you do that? You have to reframe what's out there instead of saying, "This sucks, this is everybody else's fault." Say, "All right, this happened for a reason. Maybe God is trying to help me get certain people out of my life. So this could be a blessing." So-

Scott Raven: But I'm sure that was also a frightening period for you, right? Because as much as you are aware and as much as now you are saying, "I am where I'm supposed to be-"

Drew Deraney: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Raven: "I'm not supposed to be anywhere else. I'm where I'm supposed to be."

Drew Deraney: Right, right.

Scott Raven: There's a path that you're now intended to go down that you don't - a map - there's no GPS on this.

Drew Deraney: Absolutely. No, it was scary. And when you're Man Number Two though, you're not really as scared because you're blaming everybody. So the scary part, once you see things as an opportunity, opportunities are only as good as the massive action you take. So here's where the scary part comes in. You start to do things scared and you take this opportunity and you do something about it. So when you do something about it, obviously you want to do something different from what you had been doing in the past. So that was the scary part, because you don't know what's gonna happen in the future. Now, I used to overthink and be afraid of the future - that causes anxiety.

I really started to have faith in a higher power, God, and faith in myself because now I'm building confidence by taking these steps and celebrating these wins. So that opportunity, now I'm taking action and I started to progress. I started to start winning some stuff. And those small wins usually aren't celebrated. People usually wait till, what's the big outcome and celebrate that. Well, you may never get there. So I started celebrating these small wins, these steps, this progression. So it's clarity.

Scott Raven: Can you give an example for the audience? Just because there are people who run the gamut and are listening to this and everybody is going through something, right, and they can't figure out what is step one in terms of how they're gonna make whatever better. How can you give them an example in terms of what does it mean to celebrate a small win such that they can think about incorporating it into their lives?


The Power of Breath Work

Drew Deraney: Well, the first - it's an iterative process because I started learning how to breathe. We forget-

Scott Raven: Hey, you know, breathing is important.

Drew Deraney: We forget how to breathe. Yeah. We take those short, choppy breaths. But truthfully, I mean, I worked in healthcare and worked alongside a lot of doctors and learning that you have to really, really inhale to fill up your lungs and really exhale, exhale to really let all that air out of your lungs. And that's a true breath. Too many people don't fill up their lungs with the oxygen and then release the carbon dioxide fully. And we really do have to fill up our lungs and empty out our lungs.

So that's where breath work got so important. So I really learned how to - with the meditation - learn how to breathe. Breathing gives oxygen to the brain. It helps you think more, have more clarity, right? And so that's what I started to do when I got the clarity of purpose in my life. So I definitely say breathe. Learn how to breathe, learn how to meditate, be with yourself. The whole idea is first, learning how to be comfortable with yourself that you don't need-

Scott Raven: It's no joke. I mean, you know, I suffer from mild sleep apnea. It's something that I have to work on. And through learning about that and the impact that oxygen has on the brain, it is no joke in terms of the power of effective breathing in all walks of life.


Special Needs Caregiving and Self-Care

Scott Raven: And I think that's a beautiful transition into who you specifically help, which are special needs families. And I think people have an idea of what it is to be in a special needs family. I don't think that they have a true clue in terms of what it means to be in that environment 24/7, and to be able to have authentic presence for the leadership that you need in a special needs family.

Drew Deraney: Oh, absolutely. I mean, the first step is you have to realize just like when you're working in a job and you have people who report to you, you have to have different management styles depending on the personality of all the people that work for you. Well, as a parent, I have three kids. I had to have three different parenting styles because every child's different, even though they came from the same people - three totally unique individuals. And so just that in and of itself, let's say they didn't have special needs. Those three kids, you still have to parent differently.

Now, put special needs on top of it, and I'll give you the example I have is my oldest son has autism, right? So it's a different language. His brain functions so much differently from mine.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Drew Deraney: And I can't even begin to describe it. It's one of those things you have to be in it to understand it. And so I am learning as I go. I call it building the plane as I'm flying it, right? And I truly believe that's important, especially for a coach. And I consider myself more of a mentor where I'm walking the path with a caregiver and I'm going through it at the same time, and I have an emotional vested interest in my client because I'm living it and know what it's like. It's that empathy, following it up with compassion. And that to me is so important.

Scott Raven: Now when you talk about clients, right? I think it's important for me to ask this question because I don't want the people listening to this podcast to come up with their own assumptions, right? We're talking about a wide range of situations, challenges, emotional trauma that your clients are facing on their journey, not just the afflicted, but the support as well.


Self-Care Is Selfless, Not Selfish

Drew Deraney: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's funny - when I worked in the hospitals, I would tell the nurses that the patient comes second and they would look at me, "What are you crazy? Patient comes first." I'm like, well, yeah, because we have to focus on them because they're scared. They're here, they're ill, we have to get them healthy or whatever. But if you don't take care of yourselves, nurses, you're doing a disservice to the patient.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Drew Deraney: So technically, nurses, your self-care comes first.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Drew Deraney: And that's how caregivers in the home have to think. And it's one of those challenging ways to reframe thinking. But it's the same thing as when you're on an airplane and they try to teach you about the oxygen mask. How many people are paying attention in the airplane when they're showing you put the oxygen mask on yourself first? No one's paying attention. They're looking at their phone, their iPad, they're sleeping.

I actually - I do pay attention now. I never used to, I actually pay attention to the oxygen mask role play. So I think it's very important to realize that self-care is not selfish. It's selfless.

Scott Raven: And I think that one of the things that you point out is that these caregivers and support often have an overextended trait of regrets, fear, and other negative consequences in terms of "how could this happen to the person that I'm caring for?" Right? You encourage them through your holistic health approach in order to include elements of forgiveness and faith and other self-preservation and buildup mentalities in order to put that oxygen mask on themselves first.

Drew Deraney: Yeah, the first thing is you have to realize that you can't do it alone, nor are you expected to do it alone. More often than not, though, caregivers - a lot of them are introverted and they won't ask for help. It's just not their nature. It's their nature to put it on their shoulders and say, "This is my kid. This is my parent. This is my issue. I'm gonna take care of it. No one cares about it as much as I do." Well that's an assumption, that's a judgment. And so you really need to feel comfortable in your own skin and confident in your own skin that you can ask for help. The people who don't ask for help are usually people who don't feel comfortable in their own skin or confident in their own ability.

Scott Raven: Yes.

Drew Deraney: So it's either fear of success, fear of failure, or both at the same time.

Scott Raven: Yes. Now you know the old adage - you're not just a prevailer of this movement, you're also a client, for lack of a better term. You've talked about your son who has autism, and we talked about the beginning transformational moment. When you look back at where the two of you are now and you say, "What is the biggest thing within the transformation of y'all's relationship that you look to carry forward and say, I know you will find this because I have found this in my own story." What do you portray in terms of that positivity?

Drew Deraney: Well, one of the things that - and it's a challenge for my son to see it because he looks at the big picture and wants that end result.


Celebrating Progress: Two Steps Forward

Drew Deraney: Once you start seeing that you are taking two steps forward and one step back every day as opposed to one step forward, two steps back - once you can realize that and celebrate the fact that you've made 1% progress forward today, that is so important because I remember in the beginning when we would take one step forward, two steps back, I would focus on the two steps back and not the one step forward, right?

Scott Raven: Very easy for us to do.

Drew Deraney: One minus two. Now two steps forward, one step back is the way I look at things and the way you start to increase the amount of wins is you gotta look at it differently. You know, if you say, let's say your son has a meltdown two days in a row. Well, if the meltdown on Monday was at 8:00 AM and the meltdown on Tuesday was at 11:00 AM, damn, that's a step forward.

Scott Raven: I mean, it's hard to-

Drew Deraney: It's winning the moment.

Scott Raven: You know, it's a little bit more-

Drew Deraney: Three hours, three-hour difference. So then you want to look at those three hours and what did you do differently? Or what did we both do differently? Or what happened in those three hours? Now, what I've learned now is as I'm learning Matthew's thinking language-

Scott Raven: Right.

Drew Deraney: My energy, the frequency - I believe in this frequency and energy and all that. It could - I know we're on audio, but let's say my energy's up at my nose and Matthew's energy is by his belly button, right? That's not gonna make for a good conversation. So one of us has to start learning the thinking language of the other. And it's usually not the person with special needs who's gonna do that. So it's up to me to do that. So then when I listen to him and when he says, "Dad, when you talk about five things at the same time, it totally derails me. I get overwhelmed." I say to myself, "Drew, let's talk about one thing at the same time, the thing he wants to talk about." All of a sudden now my energy level is coming from my nose to his belly button, and then his energy level goes from the belly button up and we meet, and now we're at the same frequency.

Scott Raven: Yes.

Drew Deraney: When we're at the same frequency, it means we're speaking the same language. He knows I care about his best interests, and I know he cares about mine. And boy, what a difference that is. And then you could start counting the wins. And is that easy? Absolutely not. That's what I do with my coaching to get to that transformation is to find balance. Once you can find balance in that, it's wonderful.

Scott Raven: Yeah. And you know, through that coaching, right, we've alluded to Man Number One, Man Number Two, we haven't talked about Man Number Three yet, which is who you not only portray yourself as, but hope to develop people into. This definition of Man Number Three, the authentic leader who guides others - what are some practical strategies that help aid not just yourself, but the people that you coach achieve that state of Man Number Three?


Man Number Three: Authentic Leadership

Drew Deraney: Well, Man Number Three - the difference between Man Number Two and Man Number Three is you now see adversity as an opportunity rather than a barrier.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Drew Deraney: And you've already done the work to get to that point. And then you're already starting to celebrate the small wins. When you celebrate a win, you get all the good stuff that gets released, the chemicals and the hormones released in your brain and your body - all the long-lasting great feeling. Well obviously the human being, we either look to avoid pain or achieve pleasure, right? When you are starting to celebrate wins and you're getting that visceral reaction of all these good hormones in your body, you're wanting more of that, and the more you're consistent in that, the more you develop a habit, right?

You've now released the bad habits and you've now developed new habits. There's nowhere else to go but up. And so once you start to progress, then you automatically start to evolve because then everything you are doing in your conscious state is positive. And when you do more and more positive stuff, then when it's in your subconscious now, all the positive stuff is going in your subconscious, and that's how you end up on autopilot in a good way.

Scott Raven: Right.

Drew Deraney: At its best.


Building the Caregiver Movement

Scott Raven: And that is the definition of flow. Now this purpose and vision is what has helped you to build the caregiver movement and to create these safe spaces where fathers are trying to discover their power and not just survive, but thrive. In a sense, I almost feel like there's a ripple effect in terms of it's not just the benefit and transformation that you're creating through the direct people in the caregiver movement, it's also who they then go help in terms of their broader communities.

Drew Deraney: Yeah. Stuff rubs off. It's like the law of attraction and the more you know who you are, the more others start to learn who they are. And yeah, the community that we're building now is starting to grow at a faster pace than I expected.

Scott Raven: Hmm. Fantastic. Fantastic. Do you find that when - as you're building this community and not just people growing through you, but now they are growing through others who have similar experiences and shared stories, and it's a tribe that they're creating-

Drew Deraney: Absolutely. That's the key with the tribe, because that's how you build the safe place. Because when you know you're gonna surround yourself with people who don't judge and don't assume, and they're strong enough to ask you directly a question, and you're strong enough to receive that question, knowing it's coming out of curiosity and love and compassion and not out of anything negative. Oh yeah, again, that's releasing more good hormones. The more we are compassionate and the more we receive compassion, the more we're gonna want to do it. And so that's where that becomes a movement.


Advice for Providing Fathers

Scott Raven: Right. Now, there are people who are listening to this podcast episode. I gotta imagine that there's at least one who would classify himself as a father that is providing, but is not providing presence. What guidance would you give from the movement that you're creating in terms of saying, "Here's the first step"?

Drew Deraney: Well, first of all, a man who's providing but not showing presence doesn't know it because if he knew it, he would change something. So the question is, is it gonna take the whisper in the ear to get him to do it? Or the tap on the shoulder or a two-by-four upside the head? I needed the two-by-four upside the head with my son Matthew.

So it all has to do with self-awareness. So I would say if a man is listening right now, I would ask myself, "How well do I know myself?"

Scott Raven: Right.

Drew Deraney: And if you don't know what your why is, what your purpose is, start - get that. Focus on your purpose and I can help you focus on your purpose. It's the first thing we do because I always say you have to choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it for you. If you don't know your purpose in life, then that means you're allowing other people to write your story for you. So the first step before you even think about providing and being - and you're not gonna know if you're present or not because you're in that blind spot moment. In order to be more self-aware, find out more about yourself. Ask yourself, what's my purpose in life, and I can help you get to that place.

Scott Raven: Understood.


Matthew's Pride in His Father

Scott Raven: And I think it's a beautiful segue as we go into the traditional closes of my podcast. I give a tip of the cap to Randy Pausch's book The Last Lecture, a beautiful book that he said was written for his kids and for you. The catalyst behind all of this in many respects was Matthew. Matthew has now listened to all of this podcast episode and he's coming to you. What do you hope he's saying to you as a result of listening to this podcast episode?

Drew Deraney: Well, he has already verbalized how he is proud of me for taking myself seriously. And I'm like, "What do you mean by that?" He goes, "Dad, when you worked at the hospital, you always prided yourself on 'I worked 12 hours today.' It's like you never told me what you produced, like how productive you are. Like I never knew what you did during those 12 hours. And I was curious, but I didn't know how to ask because I was only 10, 11 years old." And so the fact that now he tells me he's proud of me because I'm taking myself seriously, I know what he means. I know what he means. And you can only take yourself seriously when you know yourself very well, and you have that purpose. Because once you know your why, you have direction and then you can find the right people - the people who have succeeded where you want to succeed. Have them help you and guide you. People who've been through the fire. And so him telling me he is proud of me because I'm taking myself seriously - that was really cool.

Scott Raven: Yes. And now the follow-up, right? As Matthew progresses in life and he will have his own journey to ultimately find his penultimate why, whenever that is, right?

Drew Deraney: Yeah.

Scott Raven: How do you hope to help guide him from afar like you help guide others?

Drew Deraney: That's a good - I love storytelling. There are times where it's appropriate to tell a story about what I went through. But not too much because comparison is dangerous because everybody's situation is different. But I'll try to story tell like, "What if - what if you did this and A, B, and C happened rather than if you did this?" And what I mean by that could be, "I'm scared to go to school today because I don't know anybody and it's my first day and I'm not gonna - I'm just gonna - I'm not gonna call - I'm not gonna go and I'm gonna stay in my room." You do the what if you stayed in your room and you didn't meet anybody and you just played video games or you draw or whatever and you don't meet anybody. Or what if you did it scared - you went out of your comfort zone, you were uncomfortable - you're comfortable starting to know that you want to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable, and you go to class and you happen to sit next to somebody who strikes up a conversation and you have three things in common. And then they ask you, "Hey, after school you want to do this, and you show me how," whatever. So that difference is you could either not meet somebody or you meet somebody you don't know, but at least you're giving yourself a chance. If you stay in your room, you're not giving yourself a chance.

Scott Raven: Nice. Drew, how can people find out more about you? Find out more about the caregiver movement, your podcast - give them the deets.

Drew Deraney: All right, you could check my website out - profitcompassion.com. We are revamping it to really enhance the experience. You can go to YouTube - Profit Compassion. And you'll see From Caving In to Crushing It. We just recorded episode number 152. I believe 149's up there and three are in production right now. So it's exciting. And on that podcast you'll meet many people, men and women alike who were either Man or Woman Number One and Two, and have transformed to Number Three. And they tell their story - the defining moments. And I want you out there to figure out your defining moment that helped transform you from Man Number One to Two, and ultimately I can help you to get to Man Number Three.

Scott Raven: Yes. And you know, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the bestselling memoir I'll Have What She's Having and I'm sure people will know what that's an allusion to. But, you know, describe it a little.

Drew Deraney: Right. I'll Have What She's Having - Memoir of a Reformed People Pleaser. So I did write the book as if it's the Drew of now educating the Drew of years past. Because we all know that if we have an opportunity to speak with our younger self to give advice, our younger self's not gonna listen to us and nor do we want him to, because if we change one thing in our past, we won't be here right now. Ultimately, the way I wrote it like that is I want the Drew or the Scott 10 years from now to listen to the advice of the Drew and the Scott right now. Let's give ourselves the opportunity of listening to our younger self, right? So I always want to be able to take my own advice. Because we usually give advice and we don't take our own advice and we're there helping out other people.

So the book is really - the reason why I did I'll Have What She's Having is I had a - being a people pleaser, if I was out on a date before I got married or with my wife, or when I got divorced on a date afterwards, I'd be at a restaurant. I'd know I'd want the steak or the hamburger or something. Waitress comes over and goes to the woman and says, "Ma'am, what would you like?" And she says what she likes and then says, "Sir, what would you like?" And here I am with my opportunity to say the hamburger or the steak or what I want. And I notoriously would stop and say, "You know what? Well, what you just ordered sounds good - that chicken or that salmon, I'll have what she's having." Then I'd bite my tongue. "What? Why'd I do that?" And that was - and I truly believe now and didn't know it then - that was the people pleaser trying to show, "Oh my gosh, we have something in common. This is great. And then I'm accepted." You know, if you're comfortable in your own skin, you can just order the steak and she'll be fine with it.

And so that's why the memoir of a Reformed People Pleaser. I'm certainly not reformed, but I wanted to show in that how you can be reformed, but I didn't want to end the book saying I was crushing it. I wanted to end the book saying I'm on that coping journey. I already went through the caving and now I'm coping, but I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. So I'm on that journey to crushing it. And that's what the book was about and that's what my podcast is about and that's what my coaching's about - we're all on a journey to crush it.

Scott Raven: Yeah. And you know, that journey is never ending, right? But the more that we progress on the journey, the more that we crush it along the way. So, absolutely.


Choose to Write Your Own Story

Scott Raven: Any final words, Drew, before we close this episode out?

Drew Deraney: I just want to recommend for all of you that when you are in a situation where you have a choice - because we always have choices - I suggest choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it for you. Because if you remain on the sidelines and you don't do it scared and get in the game, somebody else is gonna write your story. And it's not gonna be a biography, it's gonna be about somebody else.

Scott Raven: That's right. That's right. And, you know, I often say it in terms of the pursuit of legacy that we talk about here within the Corvus methodology, that eventually it's your eulogy or your obituary, and you're not going to be the one to say it or write it - somebody else is, right? And if you don't like what others say about it, it's up to you.

Drew Deraney: That's a very good point. So here's my parting words. Pretend today you're on your deathbed.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Drew Deraney: What are the top three regrets you have right now? You're on your deathbed. What are your top three regrets? Write them down. Can you control those three? Yes. Well do something about those three regrets. So when you really are on your deathbed, you don't have those.

Scott Raven: Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And Drew, this was a beautiful conversation. Thank you so much for coming out on the podcast, man. Appreciate it.

Drew Deraney: Thank you for having me. Appreciate you too, Scott.

Scott Raven: Yeah. To my listening audience, thank you for your time, and most importantly, your presence and your energy in listening to this. As always, please subscribe and leave us comments so that we can make these as impactful as possible. If you know people in your life who could use the wisdom, please feel free to share it. Until next time, I'm Scott. We'll see you on the Corvus Effect. Take care.


Outro

Scott Raven: Thank you for joining me on The Corvus Effect. If today's conversation sparked ideas about how to free yourself from overwhelm, visit TheCorvusEffect.com for show notes, resources, and our free Sixth Dimensions Assessment, showing you exactly where you're trapped and how to architect your freedom. While you're there, check out the Corvus Learning Platform, where we turn insights into implementation. If this episode helped you see a new path forward, please subscribe and share it with others who are ready to pursue their definition of professional freedom. Join me next time as we continue exploring how to enhance your life through what you do professionally. It's time to make that your reality!