Steve Soderholm makes perfume for a living.
He’s also a dad of three, an early riser, a deep house music producer, and someone who has quietly figured out that the secret to doing everything well is accepting that you can’t do everything perfectly.
He lives in Nashville. He grills on the Blackstone. He lifts and saunas before dinner so he comes home energized instead of depleted. His wife rolls her eyes at his fitness phases.
We like him a lot.
The tension Steve lives with every day isn’t unique to him, but the way he talks about it is.
“I want to do everything to the absolute best of my ability,” he says, “which ends up meaning I want to give all my time to all three things. But the reality is I can’t.”
The three things are self, family, and work. The math never fully adds up and Steve has stopped pretending it does. What he’s landed on instead is something more honest: as long as nothing gets completely left out, the whole thing holds together. Some weeks family gets 90% of him. Some weeks it’s work. The key is that nothing ever goes to zero.
He’s also figured out that the categories feed each other. He’s a better dad because he gives time to work and himself. He’s better at work because he gives time to his family. The balance isn’t a destination. It’s the point.
Steve’s days start early and deliberately.
Up between 5:30 and 6, coffee first, then prayer time. That window before the kids wake up is his and he protects it. If he’s lifting that morning, he goes. If not, he gets creative work done while the house is still quiet.
Then the kids are up and, as he puts it, the madness starts.
By afternoon he’s at the office. If he’s lifting after work he stops at the gym on the way home, sauna included. “It’s so great coming home energized from a workout instead of exhausted from a long day.” Then it’s Blackstone time, family hang, kids to bed, and a quiet evening with his wife catching up before they both read and call it a night.
It’s a full day. He seems to like it that way.
Steve is a perfumer by trade, the founder of Ranger Station, a fragrance brand built around the outdoors and the kind of memories that stick. It took real belief to build it, and real doubt to get through the early days.
The advice that carried him through came from a mentor who asked him the simplest possible question: what’s the worst thing that could happen?
Steve gave the answer most people give. It fails. I waste years. I look like an idiot.
His mentor pushed back. That wouldn’t be a waste. It would just lead you to what’s next. The actual worst thing is that you don’t try and regret it forever.
Steve has applied that logic to fatherhood ever since. “The worst case scenario is that you don’t try and wish you always had.” It’s the kind of reframe that sounds simple until you actually sit with it.
Before he became a dad, Steve heard mostly warnings.
It’s going to be so hard. Your life is going to change. You won’t have time for anything. The kind of well-meaning caution that doesn’t actually prepare you for anything because it leaves out the most important part.
“I honestly wish I knew how awesome it was.”
He was traveling solo for work recently, no kids, no noise, the kind of trip that’s supposed to feel like a break. He was bored within days. He just wanted to be home.
The most rewarding part, he says, is watching personalities emerge. Seeing his kids go through something hard and come out the other side. Watching them love on other people in that completely uninhibited way small children do. He describes it as childlike faith made visible. For Steve, who takes his own faith seriously, that means something specific.
Faith is how Steve stays grounded when things get loud.
He’s clear that he doesn’t mean it casually. “I wouldn’t even say that it’s a part of my life, but that I am a part of it.” When he zooms out and looks at Ranger Station, his family, his friendships, it’s obvious to him that he’s not the one running the show. His job is to steward what he’s been given and work as hard as he can with it.
That perspective has a practical effect. When something goes wrong or the pressure builds, remembering he’s not actually in control takes some of the weight off. Not as an excuse to coast. As a reminder of what his role actually is.
One thing Steve won’t let go of, no matter how busy things get, is his friends.
He’s heard the research that says men without close friendships carry a health risk comparable to heavy smoking. He believes it. Family and work will consume every hour you give them. Friends require you to actively protect the time. He does.
When he’s flying solo, he usually goes back to music. He found his way into producing deep house a while back and it’s become a genuine creative outlet, something that’s entirely his own. Between that, the gym, and whatever new fitness thing his wife is currently skeptical of, he seems to have found a version of himself that exists outside of dad and founder.
That version, he’d probably tell you, makes the other versions better.
Follow Steve and Ranger Station at @rangerstation.co
