Devin: The Unique Way They Run Their Family, Raising Kids While You Go Through Mental Health & Spiritual Challenges

This is an AI-generated transcript.

Because of how we recorded this episode, the speakers are not assigned properly. Consider this a loose approximation of the audio file:

Michael Williams (00:04.142)
Welcome to DadPod. I'm Mike. And I'm Luke. We're friends here in Madison, and we both have kids. And at least for us, becoming a dad has been transformational. We talk to all sorts of dads in all sorts of situations to learn from their unique challenges, lessons, and evolutions. The goal is simple. Learn from each other to become better dads. If you dig it,

Please find us on Apple or Spotify and click follow. That single click helps put us in front of more dads, which Luke would really appreciate.

Michael Williams (00:38.574)
Welcome everybody. Excited to jump into today's podcast. Today's discussion, we're going to cover a couple of big themes. We're going to talk through what it's like to run a high output household. We're going to talk through how to balance life and being a dad and what it's like to go through some transitions. As a father, we're going to talk about balancing work and being a dad and a few other biggies. As a reminder on this podcast, nobody here is pretending to be an expert.

We're here because we are curious, engaged, and just ultimately want to be better dads. So today's guest is the one and only Devin Solberg. I consider myself incredibly lucky to call Devin a very close friend. He grew up in a large family, still close to them today. If you ever have a chance, talk to Devin about his barbershop quartet. If you want to know what it's all about. Deep cuts. He's traveled the world. Having spent time in China, I have

personally witnessed him order Chinese food in perfect Mandarin, which resulted in I believe a few extra spring rolls. Devin and I grew very close as he was one of the very first people to join up with Redox and took on an incredible diversity of roles, which are ultimately all critical for the success of the company. Most importantly, Devin has a fantastic partner, four wonderful kids, two teenage daughters,

two twin boys. To give you a sense of my opinion of Devin, I invited myself to Devin's house one time. It was before we had kids. And the goal of the trip was just to see how does Devin and his wife parent? How do they run their household? And I think it was an absolutely incredible learning experience, but that's the type of person Devin is. That's why I'm so excited.

for him to be on the podcast today. So with that, Devin, welcome. What did I miss? Man, that was high praise. When someone's talking high praise, don't stop them. So you can keep going if you want, but you overstated a lot of stuff. Man, just double click on. Part of the reason it's hard to talk about parenting is because no one wants to be seen as that expert. And I'm 100 % in that camp.

Michael Williams (03:04.398)
But being a parent has been a really joyful and difficult experience that it's fun to just reminisce a little bit on lessons learned and what the future holds. I will say just real quick, you reminded me about your field trip to our house. And at some point in this podcast, I should tell the actual story of what you saw here because it was one of the most chaotic weekends that I.

it could have happened and the fact that it happened so organically while you were literally like, hey, why don't you, I'm curious what a house of kids looks like. I'm like, buckle up, includes emergency rooms and stitches and Mario Kart tournaments, like it had it all. So that would tell me. When we were done, Devin was like, you still want kids? Seriously, do you want to borrow some of ours for a while? Like we clearly, we are clearly over our heads. So you're welcome.

Welcome to just take one or two on the way. Thought it was a accurate portrayal. So let's jump in. Maybe just to get us grounded. How would you describe your overall dad strategy? You know, what are your top three to five priorities that you think about when you think about how you want to be a dad to your kids? I want to, I want to first say that I think my perspective on parenting has shifted significantly.

in the last four years because I connected with my own mental health journey starting in about 2020. And I mentioned that because I see my kids in a completely different way than I did before, not because they're changing and they are changing a lot, but because I'm changing and I'll, I'll share a little bit. I, I didn't realize for most of my twenties and thirties that I had

a lot of anxiety, untreated. And that manifested itself in short tempers and kind of erratic reaction to things, which to be honest, I think was well within normal limits of the world that we grew up in, whether that's a little bit of toxic masculinity, that's a little bit of white knuckle your way through emotional vulnerability. When I started to realize how that impacts my family, when I saw it for what it was, I've

Michael Williams (05:25.838)
I've really had to face some of that mirror, man in the mirror. And so when you talk about strategies, I want to acknowledge that my strategy is a lot different now than it was. And if my kids were ever invited to be honest about what is, what are their dad's strategies, they'd be like, chores, mostly. The thing that has emerged as a real top priority is just.

focusing on emotional intelligence, both in myself and in my kids. I'm watching my kids deal with bullies and rejection and successes, grades, teachers they like, teachers they don't, things they can control, things they can't control, accidents that happen, people that betray them. And instead of creating a space where I can reassure them that it's all going to be okay, I can't. I've had to come to grips with that.

And so instead it's focusing on giving them space to feel those big emotions, right? A blow up with a best friend in middle school is life altering and terrible. And instead of saying, don't worry in the grand scheme of things, this is not going to be very important. Or if you think that's bad, think of all the other people that have worse, worse off, which I mean is kind of.

of a rhetoric that was common when, when we were growing up, it's like, dude, rub some dirt in it. Like you're, you're better off than you think. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. And really shifting that narrative to, wow, that is really a big deal. I can see that it's a big deal for you. What is the, how should we, should we just sit in that for a minute? Should we just. So giving them space to sit in their feelings and respecting the sadness adjacent to that is.

really aggressively trying to purge out toxic masculinity and the subtle diminishing of women, which to be really honest, I didn't really see until I had teenagers and watched what they'd hear it back. And it's small things that in the aggregate become really, really vivid. And I've talked to a couple other friends that have teenage girls specifically, and it's like, my gosh, I hate.

Michael Williams (07:48.878)
did not see all of the subtle jabs that I participated in. And so that has shifted my perspective a ton. Like I want my daughters to feel that they are co -equals in this world. I want them to find a partner that sees them as a co -equal. I want them to find a career that treats them equally and celebrates their skills. And I got to, I'm not going to lie that the deck is stacked against them. And so that has been a huge priority in the last three or four years.

our oldest is 16. So our daughters are 16 and 14 and our twins are 12 for our 16 and 14 year old daughter. I just feel really committed to like being aware of those things. And then the last thing that's always been really motivating for me is teaching our kids just life skills, helping them prepare for that world. I really feel excited when.

with the idea that my kids will graduate from our household and they will go to school, they'll have roommates, they'll start their family and they will be able to say, yeah, I don't know how to do drywall, but I did it once. Or I don't backpack all the time, but I've been backpacking and I know what it's like. Or I don't know, I don't change my tires all the time, but I know I've done taxes. I've thought about all those like adjacent life skills that man, I love planning for that.

I love literally looking at our summer or our year and saying, all right, our kids are old enough to know how to do these things now. When are we going to actively do that? Whether that's investing in stocks or whether that's paying taxes or how to, you know, repave a roof or whatever it is. Like I love running an e -commerce business, running an e -commerce business. Like whatever it is, I really like the idea of my kids being able to say down the road, I've at least seen it done once.

And so that has guided a lot of the activities that we plan as a family, just the idea of letting our kids experience for the first time. It's quite a bit to dig in there, my friend. Yeah, sorry. I'll give shorter questions as we go. Absolutely not. Could you talk a little bit specifically, I guess, are there any specific strategies or tools that you could highlight?

Michael Williams (10:09.55)
relating to your mental health journey and then how that translated to your parenting. Or whether that was discoveries, because when you were talking, it occurred to me that having kids is this amazing vessel to become better yourself. Because all of a sudden you're looking at someone that you really care about.

And it's like, they should do this and not that, or they should try to be thinking this way and not that way. And if you're not doing it, it's not, you know, it's not going to work. Yeah. That's exactly right. In many of those cases. So I'm curious if you could talk a little more about that interplay between what you were going through on the inside, how you were parenting and having the relationship with your, with your kids and your broader family. I promise I'm not sponsored by Big Therapy, but I'm a, I'm a big, I'm a therapy guy.

The therapy advocates and lobbyists in Washington have - Tell us some secrets Big Therapy doesn't want us to know. Yeah, Big Therapy. I got big, I got big insights.

The reason I am such a proponent of particularly men

fathers being in therapy. One is we all have trauma that we need help unpacking and society has not given us a lot of tools on how to do that ourselves. But two, I'll tell you what, when a therapist asked me for the first time a question that brought up a very emotional response from me and I...

Michael Williams (11:48.814)
I brought that emotion to the table. I'm hurting in a way, or I'm, I'm ready to connect with that. And the therapist just sat there and let me be sad for a minute. Therapist was not there to be like, let me, let me whiteboard how to solve this problem for you. Like the therapist had no competency in the thing that was hurting me. What their competency was in is listening and asking me questions like,

How does it feel? What do those tears mean for you right now? That was a question that I had never heard before. And because I had never heard it, I had never asked my children, where do those tears come from? I jumped right to fixing things and creating an environment where they don't cry again, because crying is complicated and unknown and whatnot. Therapy taught me how to sit in feelings so that I can work through my own. And so,

When you say what are the tools, one is learning how to be comfortable in that exchange. And if you can't receive it, you can't give it. And if you want to be that for your children, you, you, you have to learn somehow. You can listen to podcasts, you can read books, you can watch YouTube, whatever it is. But unless you're someone is holding your hand to bring that emotion out, you won't be able to do that and sit in that with your kids. So regardless of how much you identify as needing to process trauma for your children.

You should get familiar with that therapy cadence because your kids will benefit from you being able to sit there. And then I, I, I journal a lot. There's a lot of feelings that I have that feel raw and not yet for public consumption or even private consumption with someone else. And journaling gives me a spot to really put out. Extreme feelings. I'm really mad about it. I'm really sad about it. I'm really happy about it. And.

That means that the people around me don't have to be the, be the recipient of those extremes. I can be a little more intentional with what I share and how I share it. I think my kids benefit from that because I have a lot of hard days and I live a very stressful life and all of us I think can identify with that. And when you ask your kids to deal with you, when you are showing up emotionally drained,

Michael Williams (14:10.094)
That's, that's not a fair ask, right? That, that is your kids parenting the parent instead of the parent parenting the children. And, you know, I think that me having that perspective of, am I in a position to parent or do I need to be parented emotionally? That for me, that's a, that's a very journal heavy, heavy presence. And those journals are, like I said, raw and messy and

I buy books that don't have lines so that I can write sideways and scribble and carve into the page, whatever, whatever that feeling is. So those are the two tools that most recently have made a big impact. Do you follow a specific type of cadence in doing that? Or do you, so there's like, I'm going to do this every day so that I keep a certain temperature.

Or do you follow more of an intuitive, I'm feeling off, that's my cue to discharge some stuff? I'm glad you asked that to me right now because I'm kind of trying to discover what that cadence is. I'm not a very disciplined, I'm not very disciplined when it comes to doing what I know I should do every day, whether that's eating right or working out or going to bed on time or writing my journal.

I have a journal right now that is a daily, has a daily prompt. It specifically asks for things like, what are you excited about? And what are some affirmations and what are some of the big thoughts? I'm trying to center myself more on recognizing positive things in my own life. But I do have like a separate journal that is when I need to unpack something that is not a daily routine. That is a, that is a big thoughts place. And I've struggled.

You know, we've all tried a bunch of different things, but for me, having two distinct places for those has helped a lot because I don't feel like I need every day to be big. And when I have big feelings, that doesn't throw off my daily routine. So it kind of goes in waves. Like I said, this year I'm trying to, I'm trying to be more aware of things that feel good. Emotions that feel good. Affirmations, things I'm looking forward to and just laying more of a, of a base layer of positivity, but then have a

Michael Williams (16:30.862)
another journal that is full of rage, full of anger, full of uncertainty.

Michael Williams (16:40.846)
Do you talk to your kids about that aspect of your life? Like what does the communication look like? I go back and forth, honestly. Where I feel torn is because on one side, I really look forward to my kids having their own opinion about what works for them. And in that, you know, we just talked about life skills, like you can change a tire and you can pay your taxes.

I would love one of those life skills to be when I am under duress, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, here is how I deal with that. I don't fall into self abuse. I can confidently process those and put them in their right place. I can self care in a healthy way. I can whatever, or I don't let it fester, right? I know when I know what my trigger signs are. I know when I'm depleted. I want my kids to have that. I also.

feel like sometimes it's hard for a kid to see how their parents deal with difficulty. Right. And what I've observed in my kids at different stages is that they, they take that on like, dad has big feelings. I should try to make sure I don't make dad angry or make that sad. And I see them reacting in my effort to say, Hey, this is my, this is my journey.

We should help you find your journey. They're like, I'm going to help you on your journey first. And what I've concluded is that there's, there will be things that I talk about with my kids as they get older. And there will be like, I'm not sitting down with my 12 year olds and saying, here are the things that really hurt because they will hurt with me. They don't have a friendly relationship.

They have a, they, they put me in a place as a parent and they're like, I kind of need you to be a little more infallible than what you are. And as they get older, Breaking down that infallibility into something that's very fallible. That's a hard process to be honest. That's something that my dad and I are working through or that I'm working through, right? As he is a father of now adult children. And what is that relationship? So the summary of that is no, I'm not as transparent with my kids right now.

Michael Williams (19:06.318)
to the inner workings of how I am seeking my health, but that is something I'm looking forward to sharing. And to be honest, in this kind of forum where dads are talking about that, that is something that as a dad, I will get out of this kind of narrative is when is the right time to be that transparent with our kids about things that hurt. And that's scary. That's why our kids will go to therapy and have to recover from our parenting.

Even though we're really trying to lessen that, it's like, yep, that generation, the generational impact will carry on.

Michael Williams (19:48.238)
First of all, this whole discussion is blowing my mind into a couple of different dimensions and I just wanna like call out thank you for going there. I would say to people in the audience, this would be an area where if you have thoughts or experience in this, I feel like this is gonna be something that our generation of dads...

it could be useful to have a discussion around this. So if you're out in the audience and you have thoughts or feelings or contributions, send it our way. We'll figure out how to dive in. Let's keep moving though. So again, one of the reasons when I was like Kelsey and I are getting ready to start a family, I wanted to go and visit Devin and his family was just having heard the thoughtfulness and intention they put in.

to what I describe as the running of the household. So what I would love for you, Devin, is just to talk a little bit about how do you actually do it on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly cadence to keep all the trains running on time? What does that actually look like? Well, first of all, I read this question to my partner and she laughed out loud and accused me of lying to friends that our trains run on time because our trains do not run on time.

Perhaps we should say relative to other traits. Perhaps so, perhaps so. I will say that like every family, 90 % of our time and attention is spent to like shuttling short -term, less important, but very urgent things that pop up. You know, all the practices and the back to school nights and the, you know, whatever, the baking cookies for the bake set. Like that still occupies a lot of our time.

But it is fun. We have, we have found two or three things that we tried years ago that have, that have for some reason stuck around for our family that we're really grateful. They're starting to yield a lot of benefits. There's a couple of things. One that I want to dive into is the concept of a family economy. Probably six years ago, maybe five years ago, my wife and I went to a parenting seminar where the person mentioned

Michael Williams (22:03.022)
a family economy, which I had never really heard that like the economics of a family talked about that way, whether it's allowance or chores or whatever it is. And it got my wheels going. And so about a couple of months later, we rolled out what we call the Solberg Family Bank. At the time, our kids were probably, you know, nine, seven and five or eight, six and four or something like that. And it's

It started out as just a Google sheet that was a registrar for each of our kids. They each have a tab. We liked it because at the time we would pay our kids in dollar bills. We were finding dollar bills everywhere. Our kids were not at a point. They liked earning money. They liked having money. They were not good stewards of cash. And what was funny is they would like find each other's money and be like, I just acquired more money. And we're like, OK, no, wait a second. Like this whole idea of communal living as a family does not.

This has a limit. You cannot literally find wealth on the floor and it becomes yours. Right. Especially when you have four year old brothers. Exactly. There is not a, that was the start of the family prison. Exactly. I mean, if you have a family bank, you must have a family judicial system and we'll get to that later, later episodes. And so it allowed us to lean into this. Money has been very motivating for our kids right from the very beginning. They just.

I don't know if every family finds that to be true, but our kids, like we have lots of trees in our yard. We have a lot of leaves in the fall when we want to do like an all day Saturday rake session with our kids. Like we pay them $2 a bag. One of those big, like 30 gallon Home Depot bags. You fill one of those two bucks. I've, we have kids that'll, they'll go for hours. It's just a very motivating thing. And the Sourc family bank, we actually like wrote a, wrote a charter document. That's.

You know, hashtag geek, I guess. We don't just launch something. We write charter documents. Leslie and I both really geek out on spreadsheets. The fact that this program was based on a spreadsheet that is not an accident. What was, what was cool though, is that there's three columns. You put an entry in for every time you earn money and there's a column for savings 30%. There's a column for charity 10 % and there's a column for say spending. So every time they earn something $10.

Michael Williams (24:29.358)
You put in $10 for raking the leaves or for babysitting or whatever, and it automatically calculates 30 % is going to savings. 10 % is going to charity, 60 % saving, spending. And that's cool. We've got a lot of mileage out of that. One, our kids are used to now when they want, like when they say, how much is this job worth? We're like, Hey, we're going to clean out the garage. And they're like, how much is it worth? We're like 20 bucks. And they're like, all right, well, 20 bucks, but is that 20 bucks in spending? So the.

You actually need to pay me $27 .43 so that I can save what I need to save, give what I need to give. And I still have 20 bucks to go to Starbucks with my friends. They're starting to realize that gross and net are different. And that's a principle that when we started the FAMY bank, that was one of those things where I was like, I think that when an 18 year old goes to college, you should have an appreciation for the difference between gross and net. Like. Right.

Whatever you're, when you go get a job and you get your paycheck for a hundred bucks, that doesn't mean you get to go to the mall and spend a hundred bucks. It means that you're going to be able to spend some Delta of that. And, so it's been, it's been really helpful to men as they get older, say things like, what should we do with the charity that you've been saving? You've amassed 60 bucks in this charity fund. What's, you know, there are. We have a strong culture of giving to the church, so that's an option.

Some you could opt to. We participate in the local food bank or the Ukraine conflict or whatever it is. It empowers the kid to start thinking about giving in a way that is not just what are we supporting collectively? It's what am I supporting? What is the cause that I care about? That's been great. It's also we've evolved it now, right? This was five or six years ago. The Google Sheet has turned into our teenagers now have debit cards. We use one of those.

You know, green light or copper, there's lots of apps that parents can use to help your kids have a debit card before you're, before you're actually at a bank. We use that. That's great. They love being able to spend their own money and go out with their friends and they can track their, their checkbook, if you will. And then the next evolution of that bank is now, as Luke kind of mentioned, we've, we decided to start an e -commerce business.

Michael Williams (26:51.822)
Which I don't know if I'd recommend, honestly, we were hoping it would be a little more passive income. It is the opposite of passive income. It's very active, but what it has provided is an opportunity for us to be completely a hundred percent transparent on a big financial experience. We don't talk to our kids about my salary. They don't know how much our house costs. Like there are certain things that that's, like I said, I think is not healthy for kids to like dwell on before they have that context.

But for this small business, it was like, this is how much insurance costs. This is, we literally pull up the credit card statements every month and say, okay, we bought these products. We sold these products. You get a salary. Why is salary the biggest expense? Right? Like if we want to grow the business that would involve us consuming less, you know, it is given us a forum to talk about money in a, in a way that isn't like,

here's what our family costs and here's why college is going to be really expensive and all the other things that they would glean from that to like, this is something that we can control. It's also something we can grow, right? It's an opportunity. If they want to earn more money, they can put more hours in. So it's providing a lot more flexibility. I wish it was less work, but. What type of activities do the kids do in that business? Yeah, good question. Well, we, we specifically chose this business because of that question.

And the way that this business runs, it's a simple, Amazon FBA arbitrage situation. So you go out and drop shipping, find products. You can drop shift. We are choosing right now to leverage Amazon's distribution. So what they do, the way that it works high level is we go and find products either online or in a retail store and we buy 10 of them. And then you scan it, scrape off the stickers, relabel it.

And then package it up and send it to an Amazon distribution center. And then Amazon handles all of the prime day shipping and all that stuff. We don't even, you don't know any of the customers. All you know is that you've sent it in and it's measuring an inventory. So our kids, it's, it's awesome because they are very well equipped to do that. Like micro processing of products, right? They can bubble wrap, they can sticker, they can put it in bags. It's kind of monotonous, but it also, you need a lot of hands to make it work.

Michael Williams (29:19.854)
And so as a family with, we have four kids, like this is something that six people can actually make a big impact. And if it gives you a kind of an advantage to someone who's a sole practitioner running out of their garage. And so when we started, we basically said, Hey, we think, we think that this is going to take about 10 hours a month for each of you and we'll pay you 10 bucks an hour. So your salary is going to be a hundred dollars. And then as it starts to mature, some of the kids will want to do it less because they're interested in it. Some of them want to do it more.

And we'll start, we'll move to a more, a more hourly kind of payout. We haven't done that yet. We're only about four months in five months in, but you know, we do a month end meeting where we like, I prepare a, a slide deck that shows what we made and what we spent and everything. It's also, you know, like I said, hashtag geek squad, but they're, they're looking at slides that like we learned what an LLC is and we showed them a Washington state license and.

look, taxes are due every month. Why is that? And what do taxes go to? And wow, that's painful. That just comes right off the top. You're like, just comes right off the top. You know, like those conversations I think are, are giving us a place to have those conversations in a much more tangible way. They can actually see dollars and cents and it's, and it's successful. You know, they're making money and they're excited about that. It's not a, it's not a, you know, distant or vague. It's kind of in their face. Yeah. Maybe to.

to keep down this thread. One of the things I know you and Leslie have done in the past, I'm not sure if you still do it, is basically like a weekly family meeting. And maybe if you'd be willing to talk a little bit about that, I found the level of kind of transparency, honesty, and kind of full discussion really interesting when I've heard you talk about that. Yeah, all of...

I'll give a shout out. This is something that both of our parents did, where we had like a weekly evening where the family got together. It's definitely a lot of religious undertones, right? There's spiritual discussions. There's, you know, routines and rituals. Like we're going to have a little lesson and we're going to share our spiritual thoughts. We're going to have treats and stuff like that. Less and I both grew up, Leslie and I both grew up in a, in a place where that was really common and we grew up with that ritual and we've continued that on.

Michael Williams (31:44.782)
I think that we've, we've included a lot more. We let the conversations meander outside of spirituality from the very early time. Like that was more of like a discussion time than it was just like another hour or half hour of spiritual discussion. And to be candid as our kids have grown and our evenings become a lot more hectic. It's rare that all six of us are in the house for.

the same hour consistently every week. So we've had to adapt that. And the way we've adapted that has been somewhat intentional a lot, not intentional. We've leaned a lot more on dinner as like the gathering place. And so we've tried a couple of different things on how to make dinner, you know, how to be intentional with that dinner discussion. A lot hasn't worked. The two things that have

One we have, well, probably just the one. We start each dinner with a, have their bid, are there any big news stories today? And Leslie and I both pull up our like, you know, Google newsfeed and that could be, you know, another indictment for our former president. It could be a conflict other way around the world. It could be a crime or a, or a, anyway, we, we don't, we don't, we don't whittle it down. We don't.

water it down. We actually go through some of those headlines and what we have found is that in the context of those headlines, one, it allows us to talk about some heavy things, but it also just starts the conversation, lets us go down and we usually end with, we're joking about a movie that we saw or we're pulling up memes and we're laughing together. And for us, that arc is, feels right for us, right? It's a little more organic, but you know, when

When, the conflict in Israel and Palestine started, you know, we, our kids have good friends that are both Israeli and palette and Palestinian. And so being able to have a space for us to be like, all right, first of all, everyone's allowed to have their own opinion. You are going to have friends that do not see both sides of this conflict. And that is rational and makes sense because they've grown up in a place where there's injustices that need to be righted.

Michael Williams (34:13.07)
on both sides for us, what is the role that we can play? And so it just, when you start with the headlines, it becomes really tactical and the headlines vary enough that things stay fresh, right? We're talking about an earthquake or volcano in Iceland, or talking about the elections, or we're talking about, you know, oil prices or whatever, the headlines keep that fresh. And that's cool. Our kids are good conversationalists, right? They, they're learning how to do that. So that's been a really positive thing that

kind of keeps us comfortable talking, keeps our kids talking with us and vice versa.

the, what I call like infrastructure that you've put in place to really run the house that you want to hit. But one other thing that we've done for the last two years that has helped a lot. And like I said, you're getting a highlight reel. There's a thousand things that haven't worked, but we remodeled our house two years ago and we put a computer monitor in the kitchen on the wall and we put a little raspberry raspberry pie in the back.

And it runs a program called DAC board. Also not a sponsor of the podcast. Not yet. Anyway, not yet. That board, if you're listening, if you want to wave my subscription, we're, we're, we're huge fans. That board is basically a customized like calendar board and you can put different widgets on it. So what we, Leslie and I have a shared Google calendar. So on DAC board, it's, it's just a monitor, but it shows the next three days of events and it's everything from.

soccer practice, basketball, parent teacher conferences, whatever it is. And then it also has the date and the time, which every father and parent that is listening can attest to how many times you get asked, what is the day? What time is it? And then we also have the weather. Is it raining? Is it going to be hot? Is it going to be cold? So basically like taking 50 % of the questions that we get asked in a given day and trying to allow them, give them a place to self -find those answers.

Michael Williams (36:18.734)
We also put chores on it. Dad, what's the S &P? Yeah, actually, I actually tried. I tried to. I tried to put the price of Bitcoin on there, but Dacport does not yet support crypto tracking because I wanted them to see like, holy cow, look at that. Look at that wave that we're riding as a family. Big Bitcoin, big crypto guy. And that's the part that.

When my in -laws listen to this, they're going to be like, you invested in crypto? Are you serious? But no, we tried to keep them informed. And on Saturdays, we put their chores up there. So again, that's the place where in terms of the phase that we're in is like, the most frustrating situation is when we are not synced up on our schedule. When our kids don't tell us they need to be somewhere or where we're going to be somewhere and now people's schedules are aligned or misaligned.

That shared calendar that is public for everyone to see has been, has been game changing. And, you know, we don't want to give our, our young kids phones that they can track themselves. And so we, we basically had to figure out what is a way for a kid that we don't want to give a phone to keep track of an online calendar. And the solution was. I love it. I've never heard of this for a family before. That's brilliant. That's so cool. It's helped a lot. It has. And one thing that we've.

tried for a time but stopped is even putting like what we're having for dinner that night. I'm amazed at, as our kids, particularly our 12 year old boys, as they get older, the curiosity that they have about what is the next meal and when is it happening and what is it? It's just like, it's omnipresent on their mind. And I was like, I can't ask this question. We are having meatloaf and tomorrow it's lasagna and the next day it is tacos. You can see it on the calendar, please stop. So I think that -

being reactive to what your kids are curious about and what phase they're in, like putting it in a place where you can say, listen, this is a knowable thing. And rather than asking me every day, like go and look at it. My kids will be quick to remind me that I don't, we don't put it on there every week. And they're like, if you put it on there, we'd stop asking you. So there's also an execution component to it. We've got to work backward on a couple of things here. Start with the calendar. Tell.

Michael Williams (38:34.03)
me more about the setup. You said you and your partner have a calendar. Does each kid have a calendar? How are we executing that? We have a shared calendar partner. I have a shared calendar. We have not yet invited the kids to put stuff on it themselves, although that's probably going to be like in the next few months. Like is that pulling in your work calendar or calendars?

no, I think if my kids saw my work calendar, they'd be like, we never want to see this again. No, it that that's that actually is something that is hard for me to maintain, like a work calendar and a personal calendar. I try to keep those views synced up, like on my phone so I can see them. Alongside each other, but no, the family is just the family events, so. So on the family calendar, it looks like dad is dead as schlepping from nine to five. Yeah, I get that feedback sometimes. I get that. I get that feedback.

They'll say things like, you know, how many naps can you fit into that eight hour gap on Thursday? Things like that. And you're like, go rake the leaves. That's exactly right. Exactly right. I was like, looks like the price of raking just went down. So interesting. Interesting.

An OPEC style. Why you never deal with cartels. If you make me angry, it's going to hit your checkbook. And that is a life skill that you can learn as quickly as possible. Yeah, that's on the family, Cal. Is each kid a color? Not yet. I think eventually we will have individuals have different calendars and we have views across. We have not hit that yet. The view that we have in our in our kitchen is just.

by day, by hour, hear all the things, and we just put like daughter soccer, son basketball, theater rehearsal, whatever it is, church activities. And so they can see how everything is stacking together, but it's not a kid is red, kid is orange, kid is green, kid is blue. But again, as we're just kind of at that point where like our oldest daughter is 16, I'm excited for her to

Michael Williams (40:49.102)
be in a place where eventually she is documenting her calendar in a way that we can keep up with. I think that's part of the teenager journey is like for a couple years, the schedule cadence is just, it's just happening to me, right? I'm just going to show up where I go. Eventually you get to a place where like, I, I can write this down. I can publicize it. She's going to get her driver's license pretty soon. I think those things kind of tend to kind of be in lockstep. So I would imagine here in the next couple of months.

We will get to a place where she wants to maintain her own calendar. And at that point we will say, Hey, would you like to, would you like that calendar to be displayed on the family board? Maybe yes, maybe no. And that will be something that she can kind of opt into. In the meantime, the reason we've justified it this way is if you want mom and dad to be at a place, or if you need mom and dad to get you to a place and it is not on the calendar, you do not have a claim to that place. You need to.

own, you know, being communicative enough that like, we just need to avoid surprises. Those are very difficult to accommodate with six people in two cars. And so as they get more autonomous, we can decide what that, what that transparency will look like. So going back to the conversations to the family business and the family meetings, the, what do you do when the kids don't want to do it? You know, I have to imagine that it's not the always

the smoothest ride. Maybe it's a super bumpy ride the whole time. But what do you do to keep them engaged and invested in those activities and whatnot over over the longer term? You're wrong, Mike, our kids show up whenever we ask them to sit down and we should we should go back and start there. This is this has been a podcast. Exactly. And I think the series can just be done now. The way to do it is to just.

make it happen now. Devin will be hosting a 365 day seminar. You can follow up. Yeah. I share it online, an online book course that you can subscribe. I think that, well, as a child, the time that I felt the most resistance to participating in those rituals was when it was non -negotiable. And when you made it non -negotiable, then I will just fight. I will just dig my heels in and I will.

Michael Williams (43:12.558)
I will make it miserable for you and for me, because I'm going to be miserable anyway. So if I'm going to be miserable anyway, I'll just make it miserable for you too." And I saw that in myself and I see that at times, not intentionally. Like our kids are actually really good sports and we do have a family culture of just like, it's a very participatory sport. Like we're going to do a lot of stuff. We're going to go on family trips. We're going to do chores together. So we've kind of created a cadence of like, hey, there's

There is kind of a baseline expectation that you don't have to be happy about it. And we don't expect a lot of a lot, but we do expect, you know, be in the room. You don't have to, you can sleep if you want, but like, so we have, we have some modest expectations for that. And part of the reason when we say it needs to evolve, it's because we've gotten the feedback from our kids that it's not meeting their needs. You know, they're like, this is dumb. I'm like, well, if it's dumb, then let's do something else.

Part of the reason that trying to get everyone in a room on a certain night for an hour, it's like, I have to choose between this conference right now or studying for a math final. Like that's a rock and a hard place. Who's going to cave there? Like, I don't, I don't want to, I want to keep the momentum of these family meetings. It's something I feel strongly about. I can see benefit, but does it have to happen on Monday night at seven o 'clock to be effective? Like, no.

It could happen another night. And so it's just, I think being flexible to like our kids, they don't often write their feedback in clear narrative, but they definitely go with their feet, you know? And I think that's a big part of transitioning from, you know, for our family, I think there was a big break between eight to 10 years, 12 to 13, and then 13 to 16. Those, those phases have looked really different pretty consistently. And so.

You know, as we, as we have a kid that moves into, into the next phase, like, it's not like, let's sit down and re architect. It's like, it's crashing and burning. We should try to put out the fire and reinvent it. I think that's actually a really hard and tiring part of parenting is that as soon as you have something that's working, a kid outgrows it and you have to reinvent it. You can either lean into that and kind of embrace that, or you can be angry about it and resent the fact that, you know, you have to keep.

Michael Williams (45:39.342)
I've, for good or for bad, my partner and I both kind of lean into the excitement of reinventing something instead of the fatigue. Do you have any specific examples or strategies? Cause I'm, what I'm hearing a lot of is the kids are treated as collaborators in this endeavor of the family, of the family, all the, and all the activities that you've been talking about. But what about when.

It's a moment where you need to move from, hey, I'm inviting you to do this. Let's figure out a way to make it work to this other relationship where I need to parent now, where it's a little bit more, it's a little bit less collaborative or, or, you know, where that, that they kind of like a kid's being a kid and it's, and the dynamic has changed. Could you talk about that a little bit or, or if you have any, any examples?

of how you manage that. Well, I'll give voice to the non -represented participants here. My kids would say that 90 % of our communications fall in that game. So I don't know if they would self -identify as collaborators. I think they are often voluntold to participate. No. Yeah, I mean, we, I think one big shift in your question is going from a group situation to a one -on -one situation, right? If we're, it is actually pretty ineffective to,

course correct at a community level. So one thing, like we can create a space of like, hey, we're going to have discussions. We want to benefit from each other. Those need to be like kind of fun and exciting things or constructive and thoughtful. And, but when behavior needs to change that, that rarely, that rarely happens, you know, one -on -one one example something that we as a family really struggle with is, you know,

Our upstairs family room is often littered with dishes and goldfish wrappers and various other evidence of. Mess right. And. It's become just worse and worse, right? Like we talk about it. You know we scold, we remind whatever is getting worse and so. Week or two ago we sat down and you know it was one of those candid moments like hey listen, I I'm going to talk to you as peers here like.

Michael Williams (48:06.606)
This has to be better. We're going to get mice. You're going to freak out about bugs. We have a dog now who's going to eat trash. Like you, as a family, this has to improve. And if it doesn't improve, we're going to need to start doing things like taking the TV out of the room. So that's not where you hang out. If we put the TV by the kitchen, you'll eat by the kitchen. Like we, we can make changes to make it less fun to leave this kind of mess upstairs on the carpet. I don't want to do that.

I don't think you want that to happen, but that is the next step. And as a family that we need to, that needs to be better. So we do have sometimes the like, Hey everybody, the, the, the spirit of the community is, is strained. You're all gonna, you're all getting frustrated about this. It needs to improve, but that's, that's few and far between. Most of the time it's. We need to have conversations and we have corrective conversations all the time, you know, and, and that, that is sometimes we're graceful with it. I know I'm just saying we, my wife is.

graceful at it more often than I am. I am rarely graceful with it. I wish I was more graceful with it. I wish I was a little more surgical in how I reprimand. I tend to be hot under the collar despite spending a lot of time trying to not be. But I also like in the teenage phase, you can talk and negotiate with teenagers more than you can toddlers. When our kids were really young, people were like, just wait till they're teenagers.

If you think it's hard now, just wait till they're all, that has not been my experience. I find it way easier to have a functioning collaborative relationship with a teenager than I did a toddler. Even though the toddler was, you know, for all the things that toddlers don't do and the teenagers do do or whatever. So I think reprimanding and correcting one -on -one or specifically targeted to individual is way better than, than.

trying to do that as a group.

Michael Williams (50:05.422)
When it comes to the activities then, so I'm trying to have the weekly, you know, family conversation, family meeting, the business pursuit, all these different things that you're doing. Are you and your partner, are you kind of selecting those when you're both excited about them or is it like you're excited about this one and you kind of take ownership on that? She's excited about this other thing she takes. Cause I'm, you know,

You have two people in that partnership and it's like, Hey, it's Tuesday night. We're supposed to do this, but I'm tired and, but I'm supposed to own it or I'm tired, but you didn't pick up the slack. Now I'm mad at you. I'm just curious how you keep those things going as a partnership. I will say that.

I tend to be more, more macro and more of a dreamer. My partner tends to be more detail oriented and micro execution. We have found kind of a symbiotic relationship there, but when things don't work, we usually will just stop doing them. So if, if the thing, if the thing causes breaks down often enough, then it's time to.

It's time to evolve. So there, there's that. We, I'll give you an example. You know, my, my partner handles a lot of the day -to -day household finances. That's something that we realized early on in our relationship that while both parties are competent and willing, it is more work to try to stay on the same page than to just say, when a bill needs to be paid, there is clarity as to who is going to do that. And that's something that she's very good at. And.

That doesn't mean that I can't step in or that I don't know what's going on, but there's just a clarity of like, when bills need to be paid, she, she handles that. There's exceptions if needed, but, and likewise, I tend to think more about investments and keeping track of, of those things and how, and that's something that I like thinking about. It's something that, and we've just kind of split there when it comes to like family activities. One thing that we did four years ago.

Michael Williams (52:27.918)
We decided one summer that we wanted to really go on like a significant family vacation. And so we decided to rent an Airbnb in Washington, DC for a month. And basically moved to Washington, DC for a month and do all the things, right? We, when you're there for a month, you can do a lot of stuff. And that was, that, that was, that highlighted a lot of like the dreamer in me and the execution in her, right.

I'm like, think of all this amazing experience. This is going to be like such a life -changing thing for our family. And she was like, yes. And like, now we're going to haul our children through the Metro in DC for a month. Like, what are, what is that going to be like? Are we going to pack a lunch? Are we not going to pack a lunch? Are we going to eat out for a month? Like our kids only eat plain hamburgers and pizza. Are we going to do that 30 days in a row? Like, and I think that there, and I was like,

That's exactly what we're going to do, right? That's the only option if you ask them, if you took a straw poll. So us going through, you know, blow that up to how we plan our summers and how we plan like how we plan our high school curriculum. Like our kids are registering for the next year in school. How do we pick electives? We do kind of bring different perspectives to the table. And I think that there's a

let's, let's prepare for college. Let's be as aggressive. We can. And one of us is like, Hey, if we take six honors classes, that's 11 hours of homework at night. And are we willing to sacrifice being in the school play to take on this? Like there's the, those kinds of mechanics that honestly often are outside of my purview. When she says them, I'm like, yeah, that's of course very rational. And we all agree, but it's just who's bringing those perspectives. And while we're talking about it, my partner and I go to couples therapy.

Not just to process hurtful things, but to like find a voice for those differences, like as collaborative as it can feel and as nice it is to have a yin and a yang energy. Like they also butt up against each other and we talk around each other sometimes and we like are put down by the other, like you're flighty and overcommittal. You're tactical and pulling down. Like it takes, you have to learn how to, how to collaborate at a level. And we have found that.

Michael Williams (54:47.31)
Having a third party moderator to help us on a, on a weekly or biweekly basis has really helped us unpack the things that are hurtful as we go. So we talked about therapy on an individual basis, that same principle I've found to apply to that partner relationship too. And that's something we've done consistently for about four years as well. That's awesome. So you've talked about your daughters in a couple of different contexts.

What has you learned as your daughters have become teenagers and grown into teenagers?

I mentioned learning a lot about myself, particularly as teenage, as they hit their teenage years. I've realized that a lot of what I thought was just hope for them being successful was actually me. Pursuing my own, you know, affirmation that I'm good at something by how my kids act. And when you start to pull on that thread and you realize why, why do I have an opinion about an AP class or why do I feel in a

an opinion about an honors orchestra or a lead in a play or something. Why do I feel that desire? Most of the time in my experience, it is because I am trying to actualize something about myself or a memory that I have and, and it's something about me less than it is about their journey. And as a young kid, it's fascinating. You just, they go with, they, they participate in what you present, right? Like.

If you take your six year old to soccer tryouts, they will join a soccer team. Like it's very mechanical when you have a teenager. That's an another autonomous person that is, has an opinion about what they do and don't want to do. And so it starts to bring up like, what do I feel strongly about and why, if there's pushback and so teenagers I think have brought that a lot more to the surface for me of, you know, kids should not carry the burden of their parents' self -worth, plain and simple. And

Michael Williams (56:50.062)
That's hard because my own insecurity can easily be dressed up to look like wanting them to be at their best and really unpacking that. That's been helpful. that's daughter said for daughter specifically, there is so much garbage that gets thrown at them about how they should look and how they should feel. And, and I feel this incredible responsibility to create a safe space for them to be okay with who they are and to love them for who they are.

That means that I need to be okay with the choices that they make that are safe and responsible, but like they have interests that I don't have. What do I do? What do I do with that? They, they don't love the things that I love sometimes. And that needs to be okay. And creating that acceptance space is actually really hard. sometimes I really wish that they would want to do things sometimes. Then when they don't, I'm like, that would have been fun to do together or whatever. And you just have to get over that. Like they're their own people and you know, don't, don't make that about, about yourself.

Then the last one is just boundaries is a really hard thing with teenagers. And I think that that's an area where we've had to, I've had to really choose which battles I feel strongly about. You know, we've, we don't, we've asked that our kids not have social media accounts at all. So no Instagram, no Tik TOK, no Snapchat. They can have Spotify and Pinterest, but nothing that is like their own account.

And you know, that's something that I don't know how happy they are. I know, I know what I know that that's a stressful conversation. It's something we feel are showing you about. And just those kinds of boundaries are things that we just have to explain and keep explaining and defend and hold our own. So boundaries are tough. We've given them ever our kids each have their own room. We think that having a private space in a busy house is really important.

You know, like there's a place that you can call your own. even, even in a big family, there's privacy. Your phone is not an extension of your privacy. Right? So when you get a phone, if we are, you know, we write up a contract when they get their cell phone that says, listen, we value, we value privacy. We want you to feel like you can have your own time, your cell phone and anything you do online is not private. And while that might be offensive to you that you're

Michael Williams (59:15.918)
parents can look at your phone anytime. So can the whole internet. So, you know, there's things like that where, you know, it's uncomfortable. We turn our wifi off, shut the wifi off at 10 30 every night. It's on a timer. So, you know, if you want to stay up late, that's fine, but it won't be scrolling Pinterest. It'll be reading a book or eventually you'll fall asleep. So there are, there are boundaries that we say this is our effort to help you be the healthiest version of yourself. Usually they understand that we actually haven't had.

a ton of like, you're controlling me situations. I think our kids have actually responded pretty well to that model. I don't think they love it, but I think they can see where those boundaries are, are helpful. And we've tried to give them as much as we've taken, right? Like we've accelerated, you know, we've really emphasized privacy in space, but with that comes responsibility. So there's that's really interesting. That's cool. Yeah.

Do you have any questions here, Mike? No.

Michael Williams (01:00:21.454)
Just as an aside Devon, we're going to pick up the pace slightly. No problem. Do you mean like tying things up high and tight? No, no, no. This is for me and Mike, not for you. You're great. okay.

So talked about what it's like as your, you know, your, your daughters have become teenagers. When we have conversations like this, I think it's often here where we can start to look back. Right. Could you talk a little bit about how you were brought up? How did your dad father you and what have you taken from that experience as you father your children? I think about this a lot because I perceive that my dad had a very different parenting experience than the experience I'm having.

He may look at it and be like, that's wrong. This is exactly how it felt. You know, like I think that's that, that maybe is the curse of the younger generation is that, you know, you just don't know what the other generation is seeing and what their perspective is. My, my dad was really involved in our life. Right. So my, both my parents, they stayed together in their marriage. I'm the oldest of, of a big family and the oldest of seven kids. So my memory of my parents.

is actually more around them parenting other smaller children as I grew up. Like my youngest sibling is only eight years older than my daughter. And so, like, I believe that my parents have kind of graduated into adult parenting quite a few years after I was an adult. Like that was a, that's a big ask for parents to be, to be a supportive parent to both a five year old and a 20 year old. Like that, that is a tall ask. And,

So as I look back, it's hard for me to like evaluate that because am I evaluating how my dad parented small kids and teenagers or how he parented me? Did I identify as a small kid teenager or like, was that adult? And so I think I'm still kind of working through how I, how I feel about that. Some of the things that I really appreciate is that my dad was very available.

Michael Williams (01:02:35.022)
for going to band concerts or choir. You know, we went camping regularly and you know that I think that one way that he showed his love for us was he was around. And I appreciate that. I think I've taken a lot from that. I think what where I think I've. Yeah.

We have, we have a couple of common interests that I think as adults, we've really kind of bonded around and I'm excited to see kind of where that relationship goes, but it's definitely in flux. And sometimes I, I don't know how to compare my parenting experience with his. So that's a, that's a, that's a, it's not a distance so much as it is like a, a rare unfamiliarity in an otherwise very familiar relationship.

Have there been a couple of specific examples where you, you know, I kind of always think about it as where you have intuition because maybe you saw your dad act in a certain way versus a novel situation where you're like, I have to solve this from the ground up. Like, has there been one of those examples or a couple of those examples where it's like, I can't look back. I really have to like look at this and figure it out. Yeah, I think.

One area that I, that I feel a lot of similarity or a lot of parallels is in like being prepared and being responsible and like making sure that our family has, can look out over five or 10 years and not be uncertain about how things are going to go. I think that's something my dad did really well.

And as I get to know him more as an adult, I see that even more and more. It's like, you, you had to have like a three, five, 10 year plan of how this was going to play out. Whether plan may be a generous word, at least of an idea of how that would go. And you were guiding towards that. I see myself taking that, that similar approach. I think an area that I'm having, I perceive me having a different experience is around.

Michael Williams (01:04:58.83)
of spirituality. And I think that there is something somewhat generational about this sense of duty and sense of responsibility and the safety that comes in consistency around those expectations. Like if you want to know how you're doing, then do what you know you should do. That's very, very straightforward. And I grew up in a situation where that was very clearly taught and clearly enforced. And

There are natural consequences to breaking out of that module or that, that, that mode. And I have found that to be less helpful for my parenting. This idea of like, if you just do what you're supposed to do, life will go well for a couple of reasons. One during times when I have tried to do everything I'm supposed to do, sometimes it doesn't go well, right? There are no promises. And as I have grown up, I have started to really.

push back on that kind of abstract promise of serenity and instead lean into the chaos of life and still try to find happiness there. And I'm trying to teach my kids to have that same resilience to chaos, not fear of it, but resilience to it, not chaos avoidance, chaos processing. I feel like the model of

the last generation's parenting in large part was here's how to avoid chaos. If you avoid chaos effectively, you will be happy. My job is to help you avoid chaos, whether that's financial, spiritual, physical, whatever it is. Like I'm gonna teach my kids not to do drugs because if you don't do drugs, you'll be, you'll have a way better. I'm going to teach you how to properly manage your money so that you can avoid chaos. I'm taking a different approach. I, the, the chaos avoidance model has not been something that has, has the longevity that

I think it was intended. So, and you know, from that, for that reason we do, I think my parents and us and our kids, we'll all look very differently at like how, how we were responding. I have a tolerance of risk that I think sometimes confuse my parents. Right. I can relate to that. Can you relate to that? I think anyone who's been part of a startup, their parents are like, please don't do that to our grandchildren. What are you doing? But.

Michael Williams (01:07:27.022)
in there, I think they're, as I get older, I have respect for their style. And I think as I get older, they have respect for mine too. I'm starting to feel that, you know, as we get older, the age difference between me and my parents goes down, right? It's not, we're not that much different. And so, but it's a relationship that I've, I feel can still evolve surprisingly, right? I'm 41 and I

I'm learning a lot about my dad, the relationship I've known the longest, right? The second longest. It's something I'm still learning a lot about. Could you talk a little more on the idea that you touched on of this transition from being a kind of a child to like an adult child, right? So, and your relationship to your dad, as well as, and I'm just as curious about

know, your oldest kids are transitioning to adults and your

you know, starting to treat them like adults. And I'm, I'm, cause this is something that I went through as a, you know, as a kid where I felt like I wasn't getting treated like the, you know, I was 17. I thought I knew everything even when I was 25 and I knew even more than everything. And I would have these perceived things where it's like, I'm still getting treated like a child. Whether, you know, whether that was true or not is, is beside the matter, but I'm just curious what your processing of that looks like. Okay. Well, I'll share.

I'll share a family experience that when my, when my family listens to this, I hope they laugh about it. I hope it's not traumatic because it's not traumatic for me anymore. So when my partner and I first got married, we went on a family vacation with my family and my family's model of vacation is you crash on the floor. And I mean, it's, it's a very communal experience. I grew up with it. I'm very comfortable with it. The first vacation that we went on.

Michael Williams (01:09:35.438)
We shared a room with my siblings. It was like a queen hotel room, a queen, a double queen hotel room. We got a bed, my sisters got a bed, my brothers are on the floor in a sleeping bag. And we laugh about it now. I laugh about it now, but at the time it was like, what is the right, like at what point does a married couple not share a room with your unmarried siblings? Like, are we, are we a kid? Yes, we're part of this unit. This is a family and this is what the family does.

But like, where do you introduce boundaries? And, you know, as you might imagine, the person who felt the most uncomfortable about that was my partner, right? Who did not grow up in that environment. And they're like, wait, wait, wait a second. You mean that we're going to get married and we're going to share a hotel room with your siblings on our first vacation together? Like, does that not seem like an unfirm boundary? And you're like, I'm like, I don't know. This is what it's always been like. Are we ready to have that conversation? I think that we laugh about it now because

It is so intuitive that, of course, once you have a partner and you are sleeping in a hotel, no, it's time to now evolve to we're not all sharing queen beds. There is a boundary between a biological family and a married family. But that was something that we didn't really intentionally discuss. We just kind of had to organically find those boundaries. So like you mentioned,

as a 17 year and 25 year old, like I want to be treated like an adult. My partner, I got married when you're 22. So I kind of had that, that kind of coming of age, like, aha, like, I think it's time for me to be treated like an adult. And I went, I kind of, we kind of did that as a couple, even because we got married really young, maybe even as we were like starting to have that. And so I think that that that's hard. It's a hard thing for a, for a family. So I put a lot, I look at my parents and say,

When would we have had that conversation? That's something that they would have brought up. In retrospect, I'm planning to be more proactive with my kids about those boundaries when the time is right. For example, when we go on vacations or I'll over -correct and say, you're not invited because you're your own family now or whatever. And I've seen that happen. I don't know where the right balance will be, but I think that I can look back and say, wow, like,

Michael Williams (01:12:00.622)
We probably should have had that conversation. We didn't know how I was the first. We learned really quickly, you know, when my brother got married, I don't remember ever sharing a hotel room again, right? Like it was one of those things. And I think that's also a life lesson to be like, it's okay to not. You'll predict everything. Just go with the flow, see what's comfortable. I did not at the time feel like I knew how to sit down with my parents and say, Hey, this seems like a breach of a boundary. I felt a lot of.

uncertainty and shame about how to renegotiate that relationship. I've had to learn how to do that. To be honest, moving to Wisconsin, moving far away from my family and being able to intentionally engage for a couple of years helped that a lot. We're in a much more kind of comfortable place where we don't have to renegotiate those boundaries anymore because we're kind of in a good place. But at the beginning, that was tough. And I can see our teenagers having a similar feedback to be like, dude, dad, like, it would have been really nice if you just like, talk to us about.

this situation and you know, that's why they can go to therapy to talk about their parents. They're gonna, they're gonna say, they're gonna say bro, bro. Like, yeah, yeah. They'll talk in emojis and, and, abbreviations. LOL.

Michael Williams (01:13:16.398)
We've hinted and kind of brought this up at a couple different times through this discussion, but you've definitely gone through some pretty significant transitions in your life. And most notably in something you've touched on is with your faith and your relationship to your faith. So I think for this podcast, I think the interesting question is how did you navigate going through that sort of transition while maintaining your job and duty as a father? Like how did, how did you think about

giving yourself that space to go through that and continuing to be that dad to your kids. I'll start by saying this is a place that I feel really uncertain. And. For all the opportunities you've given today in this episode to like celebrate highlight reels, this is one that I. Don't feel like there is a. A highlight reel yet. I think it's.

It's in progress. So first I grew up in a very family centric faith. So I think, I don't know if the type of faith paradigm that one starts with impacts the trajectory of the journey, but if it does, I grew up in a very faith, a family centric church. I mean, family is very, very central. It's central to how we live our lives. It's central to our doctrines of heaven and hell and you know, what, what that looks like. We define those.

post -mortal experiences in context of family, you're either with your family or not. Like there's, it's a very strong theme. And so I think that has actually made the journey a little more complicated because it's not just, it's almost impossible to think family and faith as separate things. And so it's made me feel really uncertain about how to, how to navigate that from a faith perspective. I think that I,

I am transitioning more from a like duty bound performative place to a more authentic reflective place. That is making me feel a little more inclusive of all spirituality than it is myopically focused on my one faith paradigm as the one, the one path I I'm starting to feel more like that is actually quite understanding of the different paths that

Michael Williams (01:15:46.286)
you know, his children take in this life. Now, when it comes to my kids and the thing that really makes me feel uncertain is I feel really, I feel more and more confident in my faith journey because I have a long foundation of faith experiences that I can, I can bounce against and I can, you know, if you think of it like a racquetball, like I got a lot of walls that I can bounce balls off and see how it feels and try it again and just,

keep experimenting on what feels good. I feel really nervous about not giving my children a similar, similar walls. And actually that analogy holds because sometimes those walls are stabilizing and sometimes they're containing. And I've gone through phases of my life where those walls were very stabilizing and safe. And now I'm in a phase where they actually feel very containing and very limiting. And so.

Like, for example, I, I've felt for a while that I enjoy participating in congregational worship, but I also really benefit from personal worship. And sometimes that's, I grew up in a place where personal worship was encouraged, but congregational worship was very expected. And we're trying to decide like, how do I teach my kids to have personal spiritual behavior outside of.

congregational worship because that's how I learned how to do it. I don't know how to do it any other way. I don't know the different paths. And so this idea of saying, hey, you can choose to worship however you want, doesn't feel like a fair question to someone who hasn't had years and years of spiritual experiences that they can say, well, this is what I know works for me and hold space for that. It's kind of like asking, I think, a young kid, what sport do you love to do? It's like, I don't know. I haven't played any of them. So I'm going to pick one.

But how do I know that I like basketball more than baseball if I haven't immersed myself in lots of different spiritual experiences? So I feel torn. In general, right now, my philosophy is I am participating actively in a faith community, and I'm encouraging my kids to participate too. Down the road?

Michael Williams (01:18:10.35)
I think that I will hold space and be comfortable with them choosing a spiritual journey on their own, but I will feel better about that choice that they make knowing that they've participated in church and church -like behavior. They have friends that are conversational in spiritual related things. They spent some time reading the scriptures and they understand that they've, they've prayed themselves. They know, you know, or, or they've tried it and it doesn't work. And we can have that conversation too. Like,

I think that it's more exposure that I'm going for rather than conviction at this age. That's different than the environment that I grew up in, which was we expect you to have conviction all along the way. And we're going to encourage that down this one, this one single path. And as a result, I know a lot of people who grew up and realized that that single path wasn't what they wanted. And so in a way I'm trying to help my kids defend from that.

situation where I tried one and it didn't work, therefore I have none and I'm trying to provide them with maybe a little slower pace of this is the one path you need. Guys, this is a hard one to answer.

I'm sure Mike is going to ask a lot of questions because Mike's really good at asking interesting questions. And I just want to at this moment say thank you for having the courage to even sit here and have the discussion. Like when we think about why we're trying to have these sorts of conversations, what is most interesting to me about having this whole podcast? It's showing people that we are all going through shit like this. So I just want to like,

We're going to dive into this a little bit, but I just want to start by saying thanks. Thanks, pal. Honestly. And thank you for creating a space where this can be talked about. I mean, this isn't the kind of stuff that comes up even among friends and it's heavy. It's heavy because it's unknown. And I think that the first step is what you're taking to create a space where you can ask the question in a safe place. And sometimes those answers will come and sometimes they won't.

Michael Williams (01:20:19.086)
There's more in my heart to say I don't have words for yet. And, but I think that it's really healthy for particularly middle -aged men to have a space to just say some things that are not, that are not comfortable. So you and I, it sounds like grew up in very different, let's say spiritual con context.

that have some incredible parallels. So my parents gave me, they said, you can go to church, you could not go to church. We're not going to take you, but you can go. And it was very open and there was no expectation. And I'm very appreciative of that. And I kind of, the details are irrelevant, but for, for most of my life have been atheist and

recently have been starting to explore a more something out there in spirituality for me. And I'm have been thinking about how I will have these conversations with my child. And I'm curious

Michael Williams (01:21:36.27)
What I heard from you is you're trying to create exposure for your kids to your faith. You're trying to have doors open for them to explore other avenues of faith and spiritual exploration. And do you think that that is the most important thing in the broad category of spirituality, is giving that exposure, giving... You know, if you're going to have a heavy hand, it's about creating...

these open, inviting engagements with spirituality in whatever form that takes and to provide that base. Cause you, what you said about having, you have this foundation that you can make these decisions off of. And my foundation was cynicism and just like rejection that I for a long time was very comfortable in, but that closed me off to the inquiry. And so a very poor, very poor question.

But do you think that that is the main goal to be thinking about based on your experience that this is a complicated area of life, but creating a foundation of experiences is what you said that really jumped out at me of providing those for the kids. And having said that, I'm curious about your reaction to that based on your background of coming from like a kind of the opposite.

Context that I grew up in I think you're you're pulling at a really important thread I think it's it's actually quite difficult to start a spiritual journey on your own There are experiences and concepts that I think when you when you give them a name they have meaning But if you don't have a name for them they sometimes just get lost and just primordial soup of our minds, you know, like

And one example is like, if you feel like a higher power can guide you in decision -making, if you don't associate with that or don't have a concept of that, you may just be like, yeah, sometimes I fall in my gut, right? Like we have names for that. When you start to overlay a spiritual component, there are deeper names or different names. And I think that to your experience, Mike, it makes sense that at some point there's something very curious about

Michael Williams (01:24:01.582)
higher being and spirituality. I think what's important is that what you didn't say is, and my parents were threatened by my curiosity. My parents were devout in my, they were devout in their choices, even if their choices were in absence of participating, right? That worked for them and that they were not seeking something more. They were also not threatened by you seeking something different. That is something that I, I think that it is

less common for people that grew up in strong, devout dogma to be comfortable with other people's curiosity than it is for someone with no dogma to be open to the curiosity. That's one difference that I think I just that the rigidity that is expected of a lot of organized faiths is that like, there is one path and we want, we want you to choose our path because it is the one path, you know, like

Well, you can go down any of the 12 churches you pass on your way to the grocery store and they're gonna, you're gonna get a similar iteration of that. I think that somewhere in between the, I want my kids to have the words to describe the feelings that they're feeling in a spiritual way. And I want them to know that I'm not threatened by a curiosity because my, my perception of God has grown beyond the

There is one path and you're either on it or you're not to God is actually a very inclusive entity that is going to rejoice in many, many, many people finding them. And that's very different from where I grew up. And that's threatening to many people, not in my immediate family, but in the broader church community. That's a really big threat. And, somewhere in between there is.

where I hope that we end up with our kids. You know, I wanted to have a relationship with God. The other thing I'll call out and this is kind of part of the pain is the church that I grew up in offers different things to different genders. And not just, not just influence and authority, but like the lived experience is different between men and women. And

Michael Williams (01:26:22.702)
I have to acknowledge that I grew up experiencing it as a man, which worked out great. It's a man led church. I had every opportunity. In fact, if I am honest with myself, the programs were designed around my interests.

And it wasn't until I have daughters where I'm like, okay, if I'm going to be an ally and I'm going to expect my daughters to have a relationship with God, I have to acknowledge that like, there are not the same opportunities to know God, like I knew God for my daughters or for my spouse. And that's, that's actually really hard. It's hard for me to, to grapple with that because that, that kind of forces you to either acknowledge a patriarchal

spirituality or put some distance between me and the faith. And I don't think that every, that's not to say that every man and woman has that same perception in my church or any church, right? There's plenty of, of women that feel completely supported and fully participatory in the church I grew up in and in any church. And there's plenty of men that do that feel the same way.

That's just how I feel. That's how I perceive and growing. And that's largely because I think that's how my daughters feel and that's how my wife feels. And so anyway, that's why I think spirituality, parenting, being a spouse, like, I just don't, haven't found a way to really pull those apart. They, they really are highly, highly influenced. And lastly, Mike, I just, I wish you well on your spiritual journey. I think that.

Discovering spirituality requires a stillness in our life that is really hard to get. So wherever you end up on that spiritual journey, what I wish for you is a discipline around finding still places that you can ponder without the loud noises. That's where I struggle. That's, and as often as I can find those quiet places, I find a lot of spiritual meaning.

Michael Williams (01:28:37.326)
How do you take care of yourself? You have a lot of commitments with the family. You've mentioned having personal therapy and journaling partner therapy. I'm wondering if you could expand on if there's just how you fill your own cup. We talked to another dad who for a long time had no, he was at the bottom of the list and

You know, we probably have friends who, whether their parents are not there at the bottom of their, of their lists. And I've certainly gone through stages like that, like that also, I'm wondering what sounds like a pretty committed schedule to all these other things, how you fit yourself into that equation. Well, I can say I grapple with feelings of guilt and shame, prioritizing myself over people that I love. That's a hard thing.

And, I've also found that it actually doesn't take that much time to fill your cup when you find the right things. So. Set another way. If I'm involved in work and parenting and church and everything for 15 hours a day, sometimes I, I feel like I really only need just a couple important minutes to feel regrounded to kind of what, what I need.

So I think I've had, I still struggle to feel guilty doing things like sleeping in on Saturday till 10 AM, right? Being like, what I really want is just to stay in bed for awhile. Right. And not letting the urgency say, yeah, but is this as important as spending time with my kids right now or doing this thing? And the answer is yes, you can always find really good alternatives to the spending the next hour.

When do you decide to hold our own? So I've realized that Sunday mornings is a time when I intentionally keep my, try to keep my schedule intentionally empty. Sometimes that means I sleep late. Sometimes that means I get up and write. Sometimes that means I catch up on a show that I wanted to watch all week and have any time. And actually I'll share Luke knows a little bit about this because two years ago, a year and a half ago, I took a sabbatical from work.

Michael Williams (01:31:06.734)
And one of the goals of that sabbatical was to, I felt like I had completely lost my creative side. Just I used in high school, I sang in choir and I played an instrument and I like doing all these things that I had not done for a decade, like years, I had not really pursued those. And part of that sabbatical was just dip my toe back into being creative.

And I hypothesized that that was something that would fill my cup. And I'm habs right. There were two things that have stuck around one. I, I did Luke mentioned at the beginning, somewhat tongue in cheek and it is, it's a fun experience, but I found a co community chorus that. That I joined first just to, you know, give it a try. And then I've really enjoyed it and.

It's an all men's chorus. What I love about it is that it's men from of all different ages, right? There's everything, a couple of 20 year olds all the way up to 85 year olds, right? And all different kinds of backgrounds. We've got folks that are still in the middle of their career. We have retired Boeing engineers. We've got people that have started companies. We have people that have lost their fortune. We have people who love their grandkids and people who have never married. And just, there's all sorts of diversity of thought that, and we sing together, which is something that

I had not done for a long time, but I really love doing and they're good. They're very, it's a, it's a accomplished group. So you feel like you're part of something that's great, which I found from a creative perspective is actually really important. I don't want to just do the thing. I want to be proud of the output of it. I want to find joy in the result, not just the journey. And then the other thing that I reconnected with his sound sounds funny when I tell people about it, but I decided to try crocheting.

as a way to keep my hands busy while my mind slowly slows down. And crocheting is, is been interesting because regardless of what kind of crafty, handy work you fancy looks like, I like basket weaving or whatever, whatever it is, it has helped me. It has helped me find a place. It's helped me learn how to be still. It's allowed me to be doing something.

Michael Williams (01:33:32.366)
So I don't feel like I'm just sitting there, which honestly can only last five minutes before my brain craves having a purpose of thought. It allows me to sit still for half an hour or an hour and just, I can literally feel my mind slow down, process what needs to process all while my hands are going. And it's a stillness that I haven't, I haven't found a lot of other ways to find.

I don't find it when I'm out hiking. I don't find it when I'm driving. Other people find it different places. For me, it has been found with keeping my hands busy and letting my mind slowly ramp down. And I can, I can crochet for half an hour and feel completely refreshed. And I think it's because it's a mental reset for me. Unlike my, the chorus that I joined, my crochet is not particularly impressive. So the joy is in the journey less than the result.

Whatever, whatever the thing is, I don't see any hanging hanging. The tapestries are behind behind the laptop. It's buffeting. It's straight over my lap. It's a it's an afkat, Luke. You can't see it. It's keeping me warm. Yeah, it's a graded underwear. Exactly. It chafes little. When I think back as to like generational awareness, if you had told me in my 20s,

that I would find meaning in a craft. There would not have been place in my mind for that to stay to be. It just, that was like, that is not, that's not who I am. That's not what I enjoy. There's not, there's no purpose there that is not for me. And not that, not that you have to connect with things like sewing or crocheting or whatever, but I do think that people who

cannot see themselves creating, at least for me, that was a symptom of running too fast. And so those are the two things that I'm enjoying right now in hobbies, singing and crochet. I still like to read, and I connect with audio books in a fun way. That's another fun way to multitask. I listen to a lot of podcasts. Hashtag shout out to this podcast. Everyone should listen. But those are the two things that

Michael Williams (01:35:50.798)
I find are really just for me. There's nothing that my kids don't participate. My wife doesn't participate. Like it's really just something that, that I do and have found space for real quick administrative. How are you on time? Yeah, no problem. I can keep going. Okay. One thing I, my rate goes up though. Mike, did you approve? Yeah.

See how easy that was, Luke? See how easy? You just gotta ask.

Well, you mentioned that smashed me in the face really was this idea of when your the key areas of your life are generally well set up and aligned with your what you want that you can rebuild yourself fairly quickly. And this idea of is the family

Am I striving toward the family that I want? Is my work fulfilling to me? And am I getting out of that what I want? And as a result, I don't need this massive renewal every day. I can refresh relatively quickly. And what I'm, it's almost like,

It's easy to get lost in this like what is your daily routine? What do you do? Are you are you in a fasted state or not when it's really the real questions are if you're if you're feeling off if you Looking in these areas and saying where is it off over there? That's requiring me to Be wasting my time on what my daily routine is or be to need feel like I need this massive You know routine before I go to bed or whatever. That was that's a very

Michael Williams (01:37:45.262)
Those are different questions than what I see many or most people asking. And frankly, what I can get lost in asking also. Well, it inverts the causality, right? It's like you need these things because you haven't figured this stuff out over here. Yeah. Yeah, that would be the only thing or that would be one thing that I kind of call attention to is the fallacy of is my life stable enough to refill my cup?

That statement and Mike, that kind of came out in the question of like, Hey, that's something that people show. I think that is like the quintessential toxic masculinity. Totally. Symptom of our time. It's like, when you have your act together, then you can rebuild yourself. And the lie there is that you are never going to feel like you're like, my life is not so complete. Like my life wasn't so complete that I took sabbatical. I was at a rock bottom.

I was as, I was as burned out and exhausted as I can recall. That is what triggered the, the Renaissance of, of, of rebuilding. And I think that's a really important thing that I think men, especially all people, but especially men need to be more comfortable doing is acknowledging that if you are white knuckling your way through your life, eventually that will manifest itself in a toxic way.

That may be in behavior that you don't like that you don't approve their misaligned to your values. It may manifest itself in addiction or self medication in ways that are unhealthy. It may like given a long enough timeframe, your body will, will Medicaid itself. And you can choose how to do that. You can do that in ways that are aligned to your values on a timing that works or you will not. And I have experienced both sides and it's not a.

It's, I think that for a long time, it felt so indulgent to spend five minutes for myself. That's why I started with like, it's guilt and shame and feeling like I'm selfish. If I was really going to show up for my kids, I would be there a hundred percent, right? Give 110 % to your family. Those are things that it's like, that's aren't false principles, but they are incomplete principles. Like I am not as good of a father when I am completely.

Michael Williams (01:40:13.774)
shaved down to the bone. Like I have to have. And so I still really struggle with this to be really honest. Like I still feel like, what can I be doing while I'm recharging? Can I be folding laundry while I watch my movie? Can I be doing this? Like to justify the time. Yes. How do I justify spending an hour doing something that I want to do? Well, I have to multitask. I do something else and really finding discipline to say,

This is, this is just for me. Start with five minutes, start with 10 minutes. Like this chorus rehearses three hours a week. It's a three hour night. And that's it. I was like, my gosh, like, what am I going to do? Is my partner going to be okay with that? What about, what if my kids have a choir concert? You know, of course there's, there's stuff that you have to adjust, but figuring out how to be okay with taking that time is hard. It's hard, but, but so necessary.

I think this conversation is so deep. There's so many ways to think about it. The only thing I'd contribution I'd put in as I've thought about this is the whole concept that your kids are going to take 10 % of what you say and 90 % of what you do. And the thing that smacked me in the face and has driven many of my decisions is if I'm white knuckling, I should expect that's how they're going to live their life. 100%. 100%.

It has, I'm still dealing with all the stuff you're talking about when it's time to take care of myself, but I have figured out how to convince myself that it's a little bit easier if I say, well, actually what I'm doing is I'm teaching my kids that it's okay to take care of themselves when they're in a similar situation. That's right. And who knows if it's right or wrong, but it's what I've had to tell myself to take these five minutes or to take that afternoon nap or whatever.

Right. It's so much truth in what you said. What are the things that I want for my children? I want my teenagers to rest when they need to rest. I want my kids to explore and be creative and find things that they feel passionate about. I want that so badly. And as parents, we, we find ourselves so far away from that. Right. I literally invite my daughters when you come home from school, if you need a nap, take a nap.

Michael Williams (01:42:42.222)
Like that's fine. We'll do, we'll do homework. Like I get through days back to backs, back to back meetings where I need a break. Like, go ahead and do it. But do I feel comfortable taking it out in the afternoon? I definitely do not, you know? So you're, you. Such a poignant point to say, just model the behavior that we really want. And that means, yeah, letting your kids see when you're resting and when you're creating, you know, it's been fun to let my kids.

see me crochet or see me sing or come to my choir concerts or whatever. And they're like, wow, dad, dad does that. And at first I was like, I don't know what they're going to feel. I don't know what I want them to feel. What is that? And guess what? It just works itself out. You know, that's so cool. So last question we ask everybody. This has been an unbelievable discussion. What advice do you have for any future dads or people getting ready to be a dad? Well, I promise I'm not sponsored by big therapy, but I'll get one more shout out.

You

I wish that I had had someone that said, Hey, for yourself and for your kids, talking to a professional, learning how to talk about emotions is a life skill that you're going to benefit your kids from. So I tell people like, even if you do not self identify as needing therapy, go learn how to talk about emotions. Your children will benefit from it. So that's a, that's a gateway drug into actually dealing with your own therapy, your own trauma, like lower the barrier.

The other thing is, like I said, I, I've, I've fundamentally changed as a parent, as I've connected with kind of myself and my oldest daughter was 12 when that happened. So this idea of like, I shouldn't, I should wait until I'm ready to have kids as if that's going to be a line of finality in your life is a fallacy. Your rate of change will actually accelerate.

Michael Williams (01:44:45.71)
when your kids come. And so not to say you shouldn't put it off until you're ready, because like buckle up, everyone should plan their family when it is the right time, but just be ready for the rapid, rapid input of new information that's going to drive a lot of changes, a lot of sacrifices and a lot of rebalancing. And that, I wish that I had had a better recollection of where I am strong and where I am weak.

I bring a lot of things to the table and I also have a ton of blind spots that I'm becoming increasingly aware of. And when I look at what my kids are good at, shocking, like they're a lot more familiar with the things I'm good at because that's what I choose to do. And I choose to not do things that I'm bad at, which they have a lot of less exposure to. So if you, if you want to help your children be well -rounded, seek to be well -rounded, seek to, to know where you are weak and

Hold space for that, study it, build a routine around it. Try a thousand things. Journal if you need to yell, if you need to, whatever you need to do, but be aware of where you're, where you're strong and where you're weak. I asked my partner this question and she said something that really, really resonated with me. And that is that we, we both feel that our kids are who they are and

When I, when we first had kids, if you had asked me to say how much of their upbringing is nature versus nurture, I would have said, I have a huge impact on who they are. I think that's true. Parents have a big impact, but kids do come out with a personality. And I credit my partner for helping me understand that our job is really to keep them safe long enough for them to self -discover who they are. It is not our job to write their story.

And when I tried to write their story, I am disappointed and angry when I give them space to write their story and give them exposure to different life experiences, exposure, different hobbies, guidance on whether making terrible decisions and they shouldn't. And, you know, like that's not to say that we're friends, we're parents, but being open to what their journey is and removing that expectation has been so liberating for me. It's.

Michael Williams (01:47:11.022)
I just, I'm such a better parent because I'm not on their, on their case about stuff that honestly is a question of preference. and I hope if my, if my kids listen to this years from now, I hope that they listen back and they're like, yeah, like there was an effort made to give us space. And then the last thing is that if you want to spend time with your kids, invite them to do things that you already love.

And, I really enjoy golfing. My kids like generally doing just whatever I'm doing. So choose to involve your kids in the things that you love doing. That's not without sacrifice. It's taken us a lot of years before my kids can golf in a way that I like to golf, but for example, like, yeah, daddy slicing again. Now my, now my 12 year olds are better golfers than I am. And they know that there's, there's trauma there to unpack. So, I mean, that, that, that happens too.

and it's okay to not love hanging out with your kids all the time. They want space from us and we appreciate space from them. So I think, yeah. And other than that, anytime people give you advice on parenthood, take care for what it's worth. Cause it's advice is free and usually what it's worth. So, I, it is a joyful thing and, I get really excited when.

people that I love and friends that I admire start out on that journey because I'm excited for them. It's definitely the source of the most joy that I feel is embracing that parental journey. So, and thank you both for creating, like I said, creating a space to get, get deep on things that don't often get attention. Well, thank you for that, Devon. This has been, yeah, I've been smacked in the face a couple of times.

number of things you talked about. And I just want to say thank you. It's so wonderful to hear from you and to

Michael Williams (01:49:16.75)
to hear how willing you are to go and talk about those places that so many people aren't, but we all think about it, we all feel it. So thank you. To wrap up, thank you for everybody who's listening. As a reminder, this is a podcast for anyone who is a dad, has been a dad, or is considering being a dad, anybody who's interested in learning what it's like to be a dad, and finally, anybody who's interested in supporting somebody.

Who is it, Dad? So with that, thank you and good luck.

Devin, you have set a high bar for us here on the DadPod. Thank you for taking us there. Your willingness to talk about how you run your household, your journey with mental health, even your transitions with faith, and talk about all of these from a point of view of being an incredibly loving and caring father. You were willing and able to truly share your inner game, what's going on in your world that only you see. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

for your courage. I hope you all enjoyed this conversation as much as we did. And as a reminder, Dad Pod is here for anyone who is a dad, has been a dad, or is considering being a dad. Anyone who's interested in learning what it's like to be a dad, and finally, anyone who is interested in supporting somebody who is a dad. With that, thank you and good luck. Before you bounce, I have a quick favor. Please subscribe to the pod.

Not only does Luke love juicing those numbers, but it really does help put this thing in front of more dads. And Mike, on the other hand, just loves juicing. We also now run a listener community on WhatsApp. To join, visit dadpod .fm and you'll see the delicious link at the top of the homepage. Come on in, baby. We'd love to have you.