Hi, I’m Dr. Darrell R. Pulley and I’m so glad to be with you on the Mental Note. I came to put something on your mind and to give you something to think about, something to pull apart and something to bring back together. On this Mental Note podcast, we marry mental health and ministry.

We marry psychology and theology and provide people with practical strategies where they can live a holistically healthy, balanced and well rounded life. And currently we are working on the Dream series. I’ve been interviewing people throughout the United States of America and even in other countries, asking them about their dream and what it’s like for them to live their dream.

Because I’m certainly living my dream. I moved to Florida 11 years ago. I retired from being assistant principal of a high school and I moved to Florida to live my dream.

It’s always been my dream to be a full time minister and to do mental health. That came like as an addition later in life. But with doing these two things together, ministry and mental health, psychology and theology, I really feel like I am living my dream.

I’m in beautiful Florida. I feel like I live in paradise. And I retired when I retired from being assistant principal, I retired from the have to’s that I don’t do anything that I do not desire to do, that I’m actually living the dream to be free, to have fun, to learn, to grow, to travel, to have various experiences with different cultures and various people.

And so I’ve been inviting people to tell us about their dream and how they are living it. And for everyone, the dream is not always fully actualized at one time. Sometimes it takes place in steps and steps, but we keep getting closer and closer to co creating with God the life that we desire and the life that we deserve.

Well, I have a very special guest today. His name is Scott Wintrip and he is here to talk to us about living his dream. How you doing, Scott? I’m doing great, Reggie.

I just, I love that intro because I’ve known you for a while and that just so perfectly describe my experience with you. Yes. And I invited you because I love my experience with you.

Since the day I met you, I just automatically felt connected to you and your positive energy and there’s a piece about you and a calm about you that I just love being around you, I love talking to you and you’ve been one of those people have been a mentor to me and a person has kind of given me some guidance along the way and I just feel comfortable with you and I feel comfortable talking to you. About anything, knowing that it is a safe space to be able to be completely transparent and open and
honest with you. And I think us dreamers, we need that.

That we need to have those safe people and those safe places where we can talk and share and learn and grow and heal and evolve. And so I invited you because I see you as a person who is living your dream when I see you always happy, you’re always peaceful, and we work through things, we talk about things, but you have this, this drive, you have this energy about you that keeps propelling you forward. And each time we talk, I see your growth and I see you moving forward to become your best self
and live your best life.

So tell a little bit about yourself, Anything you desire to share. Feel free. Well, we could be here a while, so I’ll give the highlights because I love how you talked about that we’re dreamers, and I think you and I found that almost immediate connection with one another because we saw the dreamer in one another, although we may not have even seen it or known it in the moment.

But I think there’s qualities of people who dream who just, they connect. There’s almost a magnetism. And, and I think that’s how I came into the world.

You know, I, I had a mentor at one point in time, say, you know, we come into this world, I’m blemished, and then unfortunately, things happen and we get knocked around a bit. So I think that that inherent dreamer is truly in all of us to some extent or form, and that life circumstances and, and issues sometimes kind of interfere with those dreams. And so, you know, that’s the first thing I think people need to know is I love how you, you talked.

How positive I am and, and, and, but I, but I, I have my moments too, but those are important because the moments of sadness, the moments of struggle, they actually inform the dream, they inform the positivity. And I’ve certainly had my challenges. You know, I, you know, certainly family of origin, challenges I’ve had to get over.

I discovered at one point in time that I had a substance use issue. I was using alcohol as a coping mechanism, and I had to deal with that over 28 years ago. And so it was in those moments where the dream was either going to get stifled or the dream was going to stay alive.

And yeah, there were certainly moments in there where the dream went on pause for a little bit. But I think in doing the work, it’s not only what keeps the dreaming of possibility of being this human being or the spiritual being Having a human experience, but it actually, you know, strengthens us to do that and really follow the path that, that we’re here to follow and make the contribution we’re here to make. Absolutely.

So you said that, you know, we’re kind of born with it, with this dream. Do you remember what, like your first dream of who you wanted to be or what you wanted to do your life? Do you remember that initial dream? Because my initials gave my, you know, I wanted to be a preacher. You know, that’s always been my dream.

And I was bi vocational for a long time. And I finally got to the place in my life when I was 43 where I was able actually to live the dream that I had since I remembered as a little boy. Did you have something that you dreamt about or envisioned or imagined yourself being or doing as a child? So there’s two parts to that.

And the first part is yeah, and I’ll talk about it from a profession standpoint, but then more of a calling standpoint. I remember the very first profession I was introduced to was in elementary school. We were sitting in the gymnasium one day and the paramedics came in and did a demonstration.

I just thought that was so cool to help people in that way. I didn’t end up helping people in that way, but I helped them in other ways. But it was that helping part that really got my attention.

The other piece of it that I didn’t realize was going to go hand in hand with it was being in front of people. And this showed up for me of being on the stage. I was born an extrovert.

I was born. In fact, my mother proudly says that as a small child I, I would wake up happy in the morning. And she proudly says that she got that, got rid of that part of me because she was not a morning person, you know, so that’s part of that dream being tamped down.

But you know, I, I ended up, you know, following more that passion. At first I was in the arts. I was in plays as a kid.

I was very comfortable on stage. I could string words together. I ended up participating in a pretty high level community theater where for a number of years I actually went to theater classes and did really, you know, pretty high level theater shows.

And so when I look at who I am today, I still in front of a lot of people, educating them and teaching them and helping them, there’s that helping piece again. It’s just not on a stage. Well, you know, there’s the keynotes that I give, but you know, more Often than not, I’m having conversations like this or I’m having conversations in groups where I’m either helping individuals or groups of people.

And I need those communication skills combined with that dream, that passion of helping. And so while, you know, I didn’t have the specificity that you did if I’m going to be a preacher, I did have the components that I can see back from, you know, the beginning years of my life. And, you know, this really fits for me from the standpoint of I believe there’s, there’s a carved out niche for all of us.

And, you know, whatever you call, whoever you call your God, your source, your higher power, we were given that little space or big space, whatever it is to rest in and be in and dream in. And those were mine. I just didn’t realize it was going to turn out the way it did.

Wow. Wow. So I really hear, you know, that that little boy, when you were talking about, I heard that little boy come out and talk about helping people.

And I heard that little boy come out about being in front and not being shy, being an extrovert, being a morning person. I really heard that. That dreamer, I believe, is, as you said, is in all of us.

And it really starts when we’re children. But something or somebody says something that says, oh, no. Like my mother was like, oh, you’re too smart to be a preacher.

You know, preaching is something, you can’t do anything else. You need to be a wilder or you need to be a writer. You know, you don’t need to be a preacher.

And my dad wanted me to be a basketball player because I was tall and he was semi pro and his dream for me was for me to go pro basketball. And I had no interest in sports whatsoever. So you talked about how the dream can get squelched like you were a morning person.

Your mother was determined to change that. Are there any other ways where people kind of tried to smash that dream or push it down? Well, certainly. And let’s blame mom one more time.

I will never forget, you know, so. So my path went through the theater and here I am, this artistic kid and I, I go into junior high and. And before I blame mom again, let me blame some other people.

So I get to junior high and at that time, this is now the late 70s, early 80s, and being an artistic kid wasn’t cool then. I’m not sure how much more cool it is today. And what happened back then were the names I was called.

I’m an artistic kid. I’ve always been A bit metrosexual, even though I’m heterosexual. And so I got.

I got the slurs. I was a fag. I was gay.

I was this, I was that. So that started to really get me to think twice about this artistic path, even though that’s where my heart was, and I was getting into music at that time. So now we’ve taken into high school, and there was less of that bullying then, but this is where mom stepped in.

And I literally was weighing music and theater, music and theater, music and theater. And I’ll never forget my mom saying. She said, you know, those actors, they live on a lot of peanut butter and crashers.

And look, I know, you know, to be realistic, my mom wasn’t trying to squelch the dream. My mom was operating at a place of her own fear, and that fear informed her behavior, and her behavior was to try and protect her son. And that’s what she did.

You know, looking back at it, and you didn’t ask the questions, but I’m going to answer one that you may think, may have thought of is. So who countered those slouchings, as we call them? And it was the mentors in my life. You know, my high school band director, in particular, stood up for me.

Stood for me. He took me to my college auditions because I auditioned to be a music major. He believed in me.

He gave me a level of responsibility where I was actually conducting the band as the unofficial student conductor, this man stood for me. And so because of that and because of mom’s influence and others, I ended up going down that music path. And that was a great thing, because in music, there’s both the uniformity of an ensemble playing and working together, but also the spontaneity of the making of the live music.

And when I look back at that, once again, it informed, you know, that person who now is up in front of people. I’m. I’m really quick on my feet.

I’m. I’m good. Coming up with something in a moment.

Some of that was theater, but some of that was music. So, you know, I truly believe. Yeah, we.

We have these people who squelch things, and sometimes it’s good intentions just that just go awry. But we just need that one person, that one person who sees the potential. And I think that person can show up at any time in our lives, even in adulthood.

I love that because it puts me back at the Garden of Eden and us choosing between the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life, and that they’re going to be those dream squelchers, and they’re going to be those dream encouragers, people that encourage us, that support us. So you have the squelchers and the supporters. I’m pretty.

I like alliteration. So you have the dream squelchers and the dream supporters, and we really get to decide what voice am I going to listen to. We really get to choose what am I going to give my energy to and what am I going to focus on.

Because we can’t stop the people from saying what they say when they try to squelch the dream, even out of love. Now, my mother was the same way. She was like, you need to get a real job so you can take care of your family.

You don’t want to be dependent on a congregation to be taking care of you. So that was a part of it. And then there was the support that my mom gave me at the same time of, okay, since you’re not gonna play an instrument, not gonna play a sport, and you’re into this Bible thing, Even though I think it’s crazy, she says, I’m gonna pay for you to get Bible lessons, personal Bible lessons, where you’re able to learn the Bible in an intense way.

Cause it seems like you’re into this Bible thing. So she invested in it. So she was a supporter and a squelcher kind of at the same time.

And we get to choose, you know, who are we going to listen to? Who are we going to pay attention to? What are we going to give energy to the people who are supporting and calling that dream out of us and. Or the people who are squelching a dream. We get to choose how much power we give the words and the suggestions that they say to us, because it’s alt.

The dream is ultimately our decision. Um, and so we choose where we’re going to eat from, what tree we’re going to eat from, and what we’re going to do with that dream. I love that, you know, and I can’t help but bring it into, you know, part of your realm of, of therapy.

You know, I hear the distinction here between distortions and affirmations, you know, and how we get to choose whether we believe that cognitive distortion, whether it’s something we’ve chosen to believe ourselves or it’s installed in us by somebody else. And. And if we choose to believe that, that is going to inform our path and that will squelch the dream that was born inside of us, as you and I both believe.

But, you know, with the help and Sometimes this is of a therapist and we learn to reframe things. You know, cognitive reframing out of CBT or dbt. You know, we can choose to see things differently.

We can learn to, you know, push aside those installed beliefs or beliefs we took on ourselves and revert back to the original dream, our inherent goodness, you know, and grasp from that tree of knowledge. I love that you use that because I think it’s always there. It’s always within grasp.

We just have to remember to reach up. And the way we remember to reach up is we remember who we are and we do that by pushing away those distortions, those. Those thoughts that just don’t serve us.

And I love that because at any time we can choose to let that stuff go. At any point, you know, we can choose, even if we believe that that lie for so long, we can choose to say, hey, you know what? That’s not even my belief. I didn’t even come up with that.

That’s something that somebody told me that I accepted as true, but wasn’t even my thought. It wasn’t even my idea. And what I’ve learned to do is say, you know, mom, I love you.

I appreciate you, you know, thanks, but no thanks. You know, I’m going to give back to you. I’m not going to take that out.

I’m going to release that and let that go. And it took me from 7 to like 35 plus years to feel free to live that dream. But it wasn’t until I gave it back to my mom and like all this fear about money and all of that, and I’m going to give that back to you.

That’s not even my thought, that’s not even my idea. But I believe what you said is true for so long. And so I’m going to step out on faith and live my dream and see what happens.

Well, we’re going to take a break and hear from our sponsors. Your blog is great, but what if it could speak directly to your audience? With the blogcast, naming creative turns your written content into a dynamic, listenable audio experience. Just like a podcast, but without the time, stress or high costs.

Stand out, get heard and grow your brand. Visit naymancreative.com and take your blog from Words to Waves. And we are back.

Thank you so much for continuing with us on the Mental Note podcast. Let us pick up our discussion. You talked about addiction.

How did that kind of squelch the dream for you? Sorry, I’m laughing because, you know, I thought, you know, how couldn’t it to squelch the dream. You know, here’s what I know about addiction, and the science backs it up, is, you know, whether or not somebody is going to end up being an addict of some kind. There’s a genetic factor that weighs about 50, 60% of that, and the rest of it’s environmental.

I’m pretty sure I came in with that in, in the beginning of the world because I jokingly say I came into the world without an off switch. My first drug of choice was candy. It was never one piece of candy as a little kid.

It was 10, you know, and that’s an exaggeration probably, but I just, I just didn’t know moderation. And that’s not something I chose. That’s just something I noted from a very early age.

So when I found alcohol in my late teens, or actually around the age of 15, it wasn’t one beer. It was, it was a number. No 15 year old should be able to drink and still be standing.

And they still was. And I really liked how it made me feel. It changed how I felt.

I had a lot of anxiety. I had, you know, all that bullying that. Those were traumas that I dealt with and there were a lot of them.

And so, you know, when drinking really kicked in in college and I became a pretty much master’s level drinker while pursuing my bachelor’s. Oh, yeah, it was bad. It was bad, right? I love that.

Oh, I was, I. I might even make the case. It was doctoral love. It was so insane.

You know, it crossed the threshold where it started being fun at first and then it became a necessity because it was, it was one of the only coping mechanisms I had. And so there really wasn’t a dream. There was just the getting by and, you know, music wasn’t panning out for me.

And that, that was part of the reason I drank is I. I had a hard time admitting to myself I didn’t really want to be a high school band director because that’s what the dream I thought initially was. And where I was really being drawn was into the business world. I had some skills and loved to be in front of people and I had some ideas about hiring in particular.

So I got, I got pulled into that field and thank God I did. But I still had, even though I was starting to live this really refined dream that really fit more of who I was, all those inherent skills of helping people and standing in front and being improvisational and quick on my feet, I was using all of that, but I still hadn’t dealt with the underlying issue of the alcohol use disorder, as it’s called now. And when I got sober in 1997, now that’s when I was able to start dreaming bigger.

You know, I was working for other people up until that point. And it was within a couple years of getting sober that I literally woke up in the middle of the night with my consultancy completely formed in my head that I started in 1999. And I’ll never forget that moment.

It was literally sitting bolt upright in bed and going, oh, this is what I’m supposed to do next. And part of that was really innovating and changing how a lot of hiring’s been done. And thank goodness I had shed the alcohol that I was learning different coping mechanisms in a recovery life now because I would have never embraced that dream.

And it was just everything coming together. It was my wanting to help people with this, Helping businesses find the very best talent and helping people find the very best jobs. Those are very worthwhile causes that requires, you know, being able to stand in front of people and string words together and present well to solve problems on the fly was all those skills that have been coming together since my early childhood.

And it was the alcohol that was keeping me from doing that. But once it got out of the way, here I am now doing the thing I was supposed to do for. Well, at least up to that point.

And I love that. I love how, you know, what I hear you saying is living the dreams, that it’s not just one thing, that it’s multi thing. As long as we’re using our gifts and our skills and our talents and our abilities, that we are fulfilling purpose, that we are living the dream.

And so I like that it morphed and it evolved as you evolved and that you were able to move the alcohol out the way so that you were able to really fully actualize that’s able to dream again. You know, I think when you woke up straight into bed, it sounded like a dream was being birthed in you, this perfect match to who you were. And now this is what I’m going to do.

Because sometimes people have a miss, a mismatch between who I am and what I do like. So what I do is to make money and who I am is like a hobby on the side. But you were able to find that sweet spot that, that dreamer’s paradise, that utopia where I get to be fully myself and I get to do it and make money from doing it.

I really feel is really living the dream that I’m being myself. I’M not, you know, being other than myself. I’m not trying to perform.

I’m being myself. And this is causing me to be successful. This is causing me to be prosperous.

This is causing me to be able to help people. I’m smiling because everything you said is 100% true. And you know, when you’re two years sober, you’re really not.

It’s really not probably in your best interest to start a business, you know, and I’d never started my own business before and I could, I could keep going down the list of all the things I didn’t know, all the qualifications I didn’t have, all the obstacles that, you know, were kind of in my way because I’m newly sober just a couple years. I. But because I was living that dream that mattered less. I won’t tell you it didn’t matter, but it mattered less.

I was inspired along the way. I mean, when I think about, you know, when I started my consultancy in 1999 and the events that happened shortly thereafter, I made a number of decisions about how to run my business. Some of them very, very wrong, but a handful of them, enough of them that were right, that propelled me into success.

And I think about one in particular, which was a professional alignment I did with a major association that really springboarded my business to the next level because I envisioned a possibility. So notice that again, you know, dreaming and envisioning, where does that come from? You know, I love that you marry the psychological and the spiritual here because for me, they’re a marriage. They’re always together.

And that’s exactly what happened for me, where I was just. I was being informed by my higher power, which I was building a stronger relationship as a result of being in 12 step recovery. And so even though I’m making mistakes and yeah, this isn’t the ideal time, just a few years sober, I was pointed to enough of the right decisions that it all worked out.

And one of my key lessons in that was nobody ever told me I had to do this perfectly. I’m a huge believer, as you know, in 12 step programs. And one of my favorite steps is step 10 where we continue to take personal inventory.

And when we’re wrong, we promptly admit it. The message I get from that is I’m not required to do that perfectly. I’m not required to do recovery perfectly to stay sober, nor am I required to do life perfectly.

You know, the, the 12 steps have been talked about by some spiritual leaders like Richard Rohr, who you are well aware of as a way of living. And, and that 12 step methodology became a way of living for me where I made mistakes, but I made enough right decisions that turned out well, that it all turned out well. And, and a lot of that was because I was connected to source.

I was connected to my higher power. And so was I living the dream? Absolutely, because I was doing it in partnership. It wasn’t just me, it was, it was me and my higher power, who I choose to call God.

Wow, that’s amazing. I love the fact that you acknowledge source. I love that because the dream comes from somewhere, you know, it’s.

It comes from somewhere. And I love that phrase that you said, source. And so what I’m getting from you as it relates to the, to the dream and living the dreams is that it comes from Source, that there are parts of us and parts of other people that squelch the dream and support the dream.

And I also see this evolution of it that we can envision that it’s going to look like something like, I never thought that I was going to be a mental health professional. I never thought that I would be that. That was nowhere in my mind.

But because my wife transitioned 10 days after our twins were born and I had to process that trauma and that loss, I was like, wow, this therapy thing is really good. I desire to help people in that kind of way. And that’s how the marriage came.

When my wife transitioned, I was 22, and when I decided that I wanted to be a preacher, I was seven. And so those two things came together for me. And like you said, it’s a beautiful marriage.

And so this dream, it keeps unfolding as we keep becoming. The dream keeps unfolding and it gets clearer and clearer and it becomes more of a reality. Is what I hear you saying that this is my real life.

And you know, I’m not always going to do it perfectly, but I learned lessons along the way and they’re supporters along the way. And there’s a bigger picture and a higher purpose and a greater good than what we can always understand at the various phases of our lives. So what advice will you give to someone that is working with a dream and trying to figure out, do I, you know, do I play it safe and.

Or do I read about on Faith and do my dream? What advice will you give to them, those in our audience that are listening and say, I got this idea, you know, I woke straight up into bed one night, you know, what will you, what is your advice? What do you say to them? So I’m going to have to borrow from you, because, you know, I love what you said about where that comes from. You know, as human beings, we were given this ability to imagine, to dream, to conjure up. And whatever you believe in,
whatever you call that, that’s likely where it came from.

Certainly I believe it. And I hear you believe that as well. To, to completely dismiss that.

Dishonors that. It dishonors that source. It dishonors self.

And, you know, here’s what I’ve really come to believe very strongly. There are a handful of big T truths that I, I know to be true. And this one I think most people can agree with.

Wherever I go, I am there. And I also believe my higher power is there as well. Well, what does that mean for me? Well, that means I better be right with me because wherever I go, I am there.

And so what I submit to anybody who’s listening is if you discount something that’s just pulling at your heart, because I think that’s where we typically feel it. You’re dismissing self. And, and I don’t want you to live with that kind of angst.

And I know this one. When I was in college, I knew, but didn’t want to admit that the music thing wasn’t working out. I was supposed to put myself in a practice room for four hours a day.

Scott is way too extroverted and social to close himself up with a big instrument all by himself for four hours a day. That was never going to happen. But I chose to ignore that.

I chose to ignore that still small inner voice that was just saying, yeah, this isn’t, this isn’t right. And it really dishonored me. And in dishonoring me, I was not only squelching my own dream, but I was making myself incredibly unhappy and stressed out.

And so I submit to every one of you, whatever that dream is, and like you said, it could be the first of a number of dreams, at least take a moment to listen because it’s coming from you, honor you, be with you. And yeah, it may look like it’s just so crazy and so not possible that there’s no way this is ever going to happen. But that’s how a lot of some of the smartest discoveries, greatest inventions, and best things that have happened in this world came from.

And maybe yours isn’t that big, maybe it’s much smaller, but at least take the moment to listen and then sit with it and ask for help. I think that’s the other piece of this as well, is we don’t do this alone. You And I have really, I think covered this one well is, you know, we have dream squelchers, but we have dream supporters.

And I love how you put that. And this is where we talk to other people and share our dream and see who might help us with that. And who knows, we might be telling exactly the right person at the right time who can open that door.

And all of a sudden our dream that looks almost impossible now looks possible and maybe even probable. Wow. The impossible is certainly possible.

Scott, thank you so much for sharing your story with us and being so open to share your wisdom with us that you’ve learned in the process of the evolution and manifestation of your dream. We’ve gotten so many good nuggets from you today about source, about support, about the squelchers and even the self and how we play a part in that as well and how to listen to that still small voice to pay attention to that and that that will lead us to our success, that will lead us to fulfillment and
contentment. You have been absolutely amazing.

Thank you so much for sharing your dream with us. And so I encourage you to keep listening to the Mental Note podcast as we interview various dreamers. And I got some more dreamers that are coming to share share with you their dream as well as how they got to where they are with the dream.

Again, this is Dr. Derar Pulley and I’m here with the Mental Note podcast. I came to put something on your mind, to give you something to think about, something to pull apart and something to bring back together and to provide you with those practical strategies and tips so that you can live a holistically healthy, balanced and well rounded life. I’ll see you again on the next episode of the Mental Note.

Sam.