Kintsugi Heroes
Scott Carson · 65 min
From sleeping in garden sheds at fourteen to co-founding a not-for-profit dedicated to the power of a smile, Scott Carson's story proves that owning your pain is the first step to transforming it into a gift for others.
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Scott Carson spent his childhood in what looked like a normal family until his parents divorced when he was nine. By fourteen, after dealing weed and causing chaos at school, his mum kicked him out. He couch-surfed and lived in garden sheds, drinking heavily from age fifteen onwards. Over decades, anger became his default tool, at work running a steel fixing business, in his marriage, everywhere. When his son Oscar was born, a business deal collapsed two weeks before the birth, and Scott got so sick from stress he was thrown out of hospital and missed his son's first week of life. Years later, on a perfect day riding bikes near St Kilda, his wife Marcela hit the road at full speed. She had to learn to walk and talk again. Scott wondered why no one stopped to help.
What shifted everything was a moment when his six-year-old son brought him a beer with the biggest smile on his face. Scott saw how much his son watched his every move and decided to stop drinking and become the role model his child needed. The harder work came next: healing the anger he had never addressed, and rebuilding his relationship with his father. Scott called his dad and asked to meet at the pub where he'd been drinking since he was fifteen. He told his father clearly what needed to change. Eight months later, they had a recorded conversation where Scott learned who his father actually was, rather than carrying the pain of who he thought his father should be. Two weeks ago, his father spent a whole day alone with Oscar for the first time.
Now Scott walks the streets giving away pens and telling people that the value of your story is determined by what you do with it. If you don't own your story, something or someone else occupies that space in your head. He co-founded the Business of Smiles, a not-for-profit dedicated to connection and the simple act of understanding each other. At forty-five, he played football with twenty-year-olds and tore his bicep completely off, and kept playing because he was filled with love for those men. That scar reminds him what's possible when you lead with your heart instead of your fear.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses addiction & recovery and domestic & family violence, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • SMART Recovery Australia (addiction): smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au • ReachOut: au.reachout.com • 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au
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Kintsugi Heroes · Registered Australian not-for-profit · kintsugiheroes.com.au ↗