FTS Podcast: F*ck The Standard

Rob McCarthy
  • 4.0 (1)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Weekly

F*ck The Standard is a no bullsh*t podcast for people who look “fine” but know they’ve been coasting on comfort, fear, distraction, and half truths. Hosted by Rob McCarthy, this show digs into discipline, identity, mental health, sobriety, family, emotional resilience, and the rebuild that happens when you finally take ownership. No gurus, no hype, just real conversations for blue-collar minds, parents, spouses, anyone tired of numbing out, avoiding the mirror and pretending they’re good. New Episodes Drop Every Friday!!

  1. 1d ago

    The Ones Who Lived: The Forgetten Side of 9/11

    Craig Sotkovsky responded to the World Trade Center on 9-11. He came out of it with lung cancer, GERD, PTSD, and a government program that kicked him off healthcare over a paperwork technicality. He rebuilt his life in Mexico on $350 a month and wrote a book called Everybody Pays a Vig about the price everyone pays for the life they're avoiding. In this episode, Craig and Rob go after everything: the politicians who use 9-11 as a soundbite and ignore survivors the rest of the year, the pharmaceutical industry, parents who let a tablet raise their kids, and a culture that hands out reflection rooms and crayons instead of consequences. Two New York guys, zero filter, one hard truth after another. This is not a polished survivor story, it's the story about what surviving actually costs, and what you do with it after. Get Craig's Book, Everyone Pays a Vig: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732232415?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback Get your copy of F*ck The Script: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/CK-SCRIPT-Caring-Others-Rebuild/dp/B0FQ4F5NBB

    The Ones Who Lived: The Forgetten Side of 9/11

  2. Sep 12

    Remembering 9/12

    Every year we say never forget, and every year fewer and fewer of us remember what happened the day after. On September 12th, 2001, this country did something it hasn't done since. Nobody asked who you voted for before they helped you. Strangers gave blood, hugged each other, and asked one question: What can I do to help? Twenty five years later, I look at what we did with the time the victims never got. It's not another angry take, just the truth I see about where we've landed, and what it would take to get back. This one's not my usual energy, it's quieter, so give it the space it needs.

    Remembering 9/12

  3. Sep 11

    You Don't Need Rescuing, with "The Music God" C.J. Plain

    CJ Plain spent sixteen years driving truck while chasing a music career on the side. Then a half inch chain snapped on the side of a highway in Denver and caught him across the forehead hard enough to kill him. He survived. What came after nearly broke him anyway. He lost his income overnight, and he spent three years fighting a disability system that already had the paperwork proving his injury. His marriage ended in a way he never chose. He came out the other side raising his son alone. He is finishing a degree at fifty five and getting ready to drop a record he almost did not live long enough to make. In this conversation, CJ breaks down the accident in full detail and the three year fight for disability approval that followed. He also names the belief he had to unlearn to rebuild without waiting for someone else to save him: that you need a woman to be happy. "I don't need a woman. I want a woman. I don't have to have her." That is not a throwaway line, that is the whole episode. F*ck The Script, is on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/CK-SCRIPT-Caring-Others-Rebuild/dp/B0FQ4F5NBB.

    You Don't Need Rescuing, with "The Music God" C.J. Plain

  4. Sep 4

    Men Don't Do Therapy: But it Saved His Life

    His stepdad pulled him out of therapy as a kid because men don't do that. He carried that line for 20 years, through an abusive household, a marriage that mirrored it, a custody loss, and a drinking problem that started when he was 10. Willie Thornton doesn't tell the clean version. He tells you about the night he got in his car with nowhere to go and no reason not to keep driving. He tells you exactly what it cost him to believe silence was strength. And he tells you the difference between staying a victim and becoming a survivor, a distinction he didn't learn from a book, he learned it by almost not making it. This is not a redemption story with the hard parts sanded off. It's a guy admitting what he actually did wrong, what actually happened to him, and what actually changed. IN THIS EPISODE- Why "men don't do therapy" is one of the most damaging lines a kid can hear- The night he found the people who kept him alive- Rebuilding a relationship with his daughter after losing his older kids for a time- Why he refuses to call himself a victim of any of it Connect with Wille: Soul Impact: How Music Saves Us https://open.spotify.com/show/5y2cgcrU1ysYfDw8PVgAOM?si=8d57342f44ac41f5 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/willie.thornton.384125 Get your copy of F*ck The Script on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/CK-SCRIPT-Caring-Others-Rebuild/dp/B0FQ4F5NBB

    Men Don't Do Therapy: But it Saved His Life

  5. Aug 28

    They're Telling Us the Truth: It's the Biggest Lie

    They're telling us the truth. That's the biggest lie there is. Season two is back! Paul Simard is a death doula and a men's coach who spends his life sitting with grief, dying, and the lies men are taught to carry , starting with the idea that everything about death, and everything about being a man, has been safely outsourced to someone else. He tells the story of the day he missed his own daughter, doing the dishes while she told him what happened at school, and not understanding what he'd actually missed until seven years later. He breaks down the lie that your worth comes from your production. And he explains why he stopped chasing healing and started chasing something else entirely. IN THIS EPISODE- The lie behind male worth, and why production was never the measure- The dishwashing story that took seven years to land- Why rage might be the most useful thing men have been taught to suppress- What healing gets wrong, and why wholing works better This is part one. Part two is already on the way. Connect with Paul: www.paulsimard.co  https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_simard_the_mythical_man  www.thecanoe.co  IG: https://www.instagram.com/living__wisdom/  FB: https://www.facebook.com/paul.sim.17 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-simard/  Get your copy of F*ck The Script: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/CK-SCRIPT-Caring-Others-Rebuild/dp/B0FQ4F5NBB

    They're Telling Us the Truth: It's the Biggest Lie

  6. Jul 10

    I Was Mad I Woke Up: The Opposite of an Epiphany -- JoJo Lynn on What Eight Years of Severe Depression Actually Feels Like

    JoJo Lynn came out of eight years of severe clinical depression and built a podcast to make sure other people did not have to survive in silence the way she did. In this episode, she walks through two divorces, narcissistic abuse, the loss of a stillborn daughter, and the sudden death of her best friend; then traces the slow, unglamorous process of rebuilding herself from that stack of losses. The conversation covers what severe depression actually feels like from the inside, how anger was the first emotion she felt that was not directed at herself, why boundaries only hold when the people around you are willing to respect them, and the grounding technique her therapist gave her that still works when the spiral starts. JoJo also shares the full version of the blood of the covenant quote, explains why the word narcissist has been so diluted that people who actually lived it have lost their footing, and delivers one of the most practical closing answers in F**k the Standard history......... SAVE YOUR MONEY!!! Find JoJo Lynn on all major platforms by searching No Hard Feelings Kinda or NHFK Podcast, or on Spotify at: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Q2mmRyZspf9Qr40ZGB25R?si=50c7842c244d45c5 Book -- F*ck The Script: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/CK-SCRIPT-Caring-Others-Rebuild/dp/B0FQ4F5NBB

    I Was Mad I Woke Up: The Opposite of an Epiphany -- JoJo Lynn on What Eight Years of Severe Depression Actually Feels Like

  7. Jun 26

    The Rewrite: How Kimberly Love Rebuilt her Life After Disappearing into Someone Else's

    Kimberly Love is a six-time published author, a licensed pilot, a radio host with a nine-year track record, and a woman who spent years as the invisible support system in her own marriage before she finally reclaimed herself. In this episode, Kim talks about childhood abuse as a foundational experience, how she dissolved her own creative identity to prop up someone else's goals, the specific moment she realized she was disappearing, and what the actual process of rebuilding looked like after the marriage ended. She also tells the story of getting her pilot's license and what happens when a flight instructor cuts the engine mid-air to see what you are actually made of. This one runs deep. Topics covered: identity loss in marriage, divorce and healing, becoming the main character, the foundation metaphor, resilience built through repetition, creative life and self-prioritization, attention span and social media, advice to your younger self. Get Kimberly Love's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07H1YY4NW?ccs_id=bac4f071-8ff4-4653-8856-95680ec6f09b Get Rob's book F*ck The Script: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/CK-SCRIPT-Caring-Others-Rebuild/dp/B0FQ4F5NBB

    The Rewrite: How Kimberly Love Rebuilt her Life After Disappearing into Someone Else's

  8. Jun 19

    The Unluckiest Man in NATO: Who Transitioned in to the Definition of Resilience

    David Jarvis spent 21 years in the British Army before a medical discharge in January 2022 forced him to rebuild everything from scratch. He was three months into his training when he watched a fellow soldier die in the bunk beside him, days after 9/11. That moment, and the PTSD it helped create, followed him through three tours of Afghanistan and two decades of using busyness as a coping mechanism. When the Army finally let him go, he had no plan, a deteriorating credit score, a family to house, and a fraud charge from his own unit hanging over him. In this episode, David walks through his five rules for navigating adversity, the moment a Type 1 diabetes diagnosis forced him to actually write those rules down, the six weeks his family spent effectively homeless, and what finally pushed him toward motivational speaking. In September 2024, he delivered the Time for Reflection address at Scottish Parliament. In April 2024, he had just started his company. This episode covers PTSD in the military, the real cost of a medical discharge, financial literacy as survival, and the difference between responsibility and accountability. If you are rebuilding something right now, this one is for you. Connect with David at SpeakingSBC.com Book: F*ck The Script -- https://www.amazon.com/-/es/CK-SCRIPT-Caring-Others-Rebuild/dp/B0FQ4F5NBB

    The Unluckiest Man in NATO: Who Transitioned in to the Definition of Resilience
See All (30)

About

F*ck The Standard is a no bullsh*t podcast for people who look “fine” but know they’ve been coasting on comfort, fear, distraction, and half truths. Hosted by Rob McCarthy, this show digs into discipline, identity, mental health, sobriety, family, emotional resilience, and the rebuild that happens when you finally take ownership. No gurus, no hype, just real conversations for blue-collar minds, parents, spouses, anyone tired of numbing out, avoiding the mirror and pretending they’re good. New Episodes Drop Every Friday!!

Information