Episode 9
· 01:17:32
This is an AI-generated transcript, so consider it an approximation of the audio:
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.
click follow. That single click helps put us in front of more dads, which Luke would really appreciate.
Michael Williams (00:38.734)
Hi everybody. This is Luke and Mike here and we're very excited for today's discussion with our guest, Izaz. Our first topic will be discussing what it's like to raise kids in America as an immigrant, where your cultural context might be different than that of your kids. Then we're going to discuss what it's like to raise a family with a strong faith -based approach. And finally, we're going to talk about community and different strategies to build community around your family. As a reminder,
No one here, excuse me, is pretending to be an expert. We are practitioners just like everybody else working every day to try and be better dads. So with that, I am so excited to introduce Azaz to you all. Azaz was born in Bangladesh and immigrated to the U .S. as a young child where he lived in New York City. He is a true entrepreneur, the type of entrepreneur that can't stop starting businesses. At different points in his life,
Azaz has run a real estate business, a contracting business, a photography business, a student exchange organization, and the list goes on. Today, Azaz lives with his family, his incredible wife, who can dunk literally and intellectually on any of us, his three beautiful children, all in community outside of Atlanta. And I know I'm late, but Ramadan Mubarak, my friend. I hope you and your family had a wonderful Ramadan. Welcome.
Thank you so much for having me and it's truly an honor to be here with you. I'm just so excited to see both of your faces after all these years. So it's truly a pleasure to be here. All right. Let's jump in. So we like to start a lot of our discussions in this way, which is to describe your overall dad strategy. You know, what are the top three to five priorities you think about when it comes to how you want to be a dad?
to your kids? Great question. You know me from a different time frame as a college student and recent graduate and trying to figure things out newlywed. But I think before I had kids, there has been a transformation for me. And the transformation has been a spiritual one. And in terms of not knowing and going into the deep end, it's truly that's how I feel. So I had to really
Michael Williams (03:04.654)
re -center myself in terms of what are important. And I went in like you one would with the startup and not knowing anything other than the idea of what you want. And I just went for the big picture of those values. So I went back to the faith tradition of Islam, I'm a Muslim obviously, and what those values are. And we went kind of deep dive into the Prophet Muhammad and his way of
raising children and being a father and what that meant and you know all the prophets we know of any faith they were very busy people right they had a lot going on as a story if you don't believe in terms of the prophethood as a storyline these men were very busy
I took from that and I tried to be present with my kids as much as I could, being, traveling all the time and having a lot of hobbies. So I tried to incorporate my kids into my daily routine as much as possible. And the other thing that's not connected to faith, but I tried to partner with my wife as much as possible to.
lean on her and get that perspective. And she has been truly an amazing support system for me in my spiritual development. Just being in the space with me and interacting with her. And it's still a revolution, obviously, but I just go back to how would, you know, how would the Prophet Muhammad, how would he react to something? And most of the time, I don't get to that process, but I'm always
trying to correct myself and kind of trying my best to align with that perspective. Would you mind talking about, you referenced some of the specific values. Would you mind talking about what some of those values are and maybe how you express them? Sure. In terms of values, the things that are very important to me is obviously the religious value, but within that,
Michael Williams (05:22.062)
kindness, being generous, and being present. Those are the three things I try to teach my kids. And how to do that is, I truly struggle with the being present piece because I've always had so much going on in my brain. And my kids have a totally tangent way of thinking about other things. So it's...
It's really spending time with them and kind of saying, look, I'm struggling with this. This is how I want to be. This is what I want to do. I want you to partner with me and I want you to practice with me. So like, it all comes down to maybe it's a very obtuse way of looking at it. I just look at like tasks in front of me and what is important fundamentally for the kids. And my whole thing is,
And maybe because I'm really new to it has been the screen of the religion screen and kind of taking it through that. Because the rest, as you said, Luke, we're all practitioners. We don't really know, but we do know there are like some real challenges out there and we need to be anchored to something. And I think me being so new at this, it's to anchor to the faith and then using that to kind of dictate.
So in terms of specific values, other than that, I feel like there's so many values, right? And it can all evolve from different things. It could be, you know, values that your parents taught you, values them. So for me, I guess what is not, it's I'm even bypassing parents in some ways. I'm going back to the religious because my parents are, they have their challenges and they were immigrants and they have
They wanted to do a lot of things they couldn't, but they did their best. And so I'm trying to kind of bypass that and relearn through that. Could you talk about that a little bit more just in terms of did having kids adjust your viewpoint on your parents' experience and...
Michael Williams (07:37.646)
You know, obviously being immigrants has got to be incredibly hard and it could go well, it could go poorly. You know, I don't know kind of what your original viewpoint on it was, but now you have kids, now you're trying to apply your own screen and values to that situation. Do you, do you now look back with a different viewpoint on, on what they were trying to do with you? I definitely have more gratitude and more sympathy.
I always, I mean, my parents, to their credit, they didn't hide the struggle, but they also, at the same time, while they were struggling through different aspects of being in America and raising children, they have this, I guess, a vision of what family looked like, and they were very protective in that way. So it was, so we,
I personally always appreciated that. So like, for example, my mom, she still to this day, you know, doesn't speak English well, but she really understood that the space that I was growing up in is totally foreign to her. And she kind of talked about those high level values that I think she also drew from her religious background. But then she gave me a lot of space.
to kind of explore. So she told me what I shouldn't be thinking about or trying to do, but she didn't say, you gotta be home all the time. So I was able to go to the movies, I was able to hang out with people, I was able to go do all the stuff with ISAC even as an older person, but still within some of oversight from parents, right? In college, you still, especially as an immigrant family, even college, you have...
your parents have influence. So she definitely gave me that and my dad was supportive of it. So I think it's a big deal because now I catch myself as, you know, I try to over parent, meaning I try to put too many constraints, but I think
Michael Williams (09:59.182)
what she did is profound, right? Because she kind of gave me the credit and the ability and the space to explore and, you know, from the entrepreneurship standpoint, tinker a little bit and then maybe make some mistakes and then grow from it. I think it really have a really overall, the current standpoint in terms of when I'm dead, I don't know if it was positive or negative. Now, at this point in time, I think it's a very positive.
impact. And in terms of gratitude, I think, you know, like I was telling Luke when we spoke initially, like my dad, he was more of a quiet person in the background, meaning he was working many hours. And so even with that, his, his, I guess, his care and the love that he had, you know, he showed it differently. And at the time, I think as as men or boys with fathers, there's always some natural
I don't want to say misunderstanding, it's just that we're trying to get a better perspective of each other and as we're growing. But now looking back, I think there's a lot more gratitude with my dad because he did all his work, I mean, whatever he had to do to financially provide. And then he supported us in many ways that now I'm like, are you kidding me? Like I would kind of...
die if I had to do that. So the example I shared with Luke is he worked until eight and 10 at night. And then he would sit with us, especially my older brother and sister, and went through their homework. And he didn't speak English well, and they were new, they didn't speak English well. So it didn't go well. But they were up until four or five in the morning. And then, you know, he would have to sleep an hour or so and then wake up.
and take us to school and then he would have work. So I mean, he did that for, I know at least for a year and a half or two years, at some level. Like I caught on the English language pretty quickly. I was much younger than my siblings, but they had a tough time and he was the one who had to support that. I mean, now I just have a hard time to remember with my oldest Alia just spending, waking up at night to just feed her a bottle prepared by my wife.
Michael Williams (12:20.878)
I remember thinking back, it was truly a battle for me. So total gratitude is how I feel and just so lucky to have come in this. And religiously, it's interesting, in Islam, we have no choice in a few things in terms of when we are, in which family we're born and when we die.
And it is truly the divine plan in terms of those things. Everything else, we have a choice. Us being friends and after 10 years and connecting this way, it's a choice in terms of, but those things aren't. And it's really a humbling thing to know that these parents were chosen for you. And the time of death is also preordained, I guess. Sorry, it's a very long -winded way to...
Long way home, as they say.
Michael Williams (13:22.542)
What did I say earlier? Something's never changed. Yeah. One of the things listening to your story, it really piqued my interest was thinking about you as an entrepreneur. Where do you think that comes from? Where do you think that drive or that curiosity or that creativity or that maybe that risk tolerance comes from when you look back at how you were raised?
I think with entrepreneurship, if you look at the immigrant scenario in the US, there's two things. One is the lack of access and the other is not knowing. So if you see more, the most successful entrepreneurs, they typically are not the most grounded in the facts or knowing the rules or the structures because then your risk tolerance become much less.
because you kind of know all the angles and all the issues and the problems. So for me, my family and the people I knew, they had to kind of do things on their own because they weren't really highly educated, that generation. But to the credit, very similar to other immigrant families, like all my siblings are attorneys or engineers or doctors, extended family, everyone is very successful.
educationally, but the challenge of not having access to, you just don't have any other options but to try something on your own. And the risk tolerance is that, I think truly, I'm being very honest, is that just not knowing enough.
You can't break rules that you don't know about. Sorry? You can't break the rules you don't know about. That's right. That's right. That's right. So I think, and that's the thing with entrepreneurship is that as you learn, as you grow, as you understand different industries or different types of things, you have to continue to get to the unknown. Because if you don't, you get stuck because you're like, okay, I'm a tech guy.
Michael Williams (15:39.022)
I already know all these things and like I'm trying to create another tech company. It's tough because you kind of see all the pitfalls and the issues and kind of limits you. So I think the, my analysis of thought process now where I'm at today is the difference is trying to try different things. So how to capture the skill sets you have and to kind of leverage them in different spaces. But there is a sense of.
unknown and that is also interesting and exciting. I think if we do that, I think we can be more successful. Is that something that you try to pass on to your kids? I'm curious how you think about that because I think it's, if you're an entrepreneur, it's very common that I've observed you want to pass on this
go get them entrepreneur attitude to your kids. And you also see it with, if you're well -educated, you want your kids to be well -educated. And I don't know if that is, like, is it good? I don't know it, like it worked out for me, but will it work out for them? Like not if, not if that doesn't fit with their thing. I'm just curious how you think about having gone through your, particularly your entrepreneur experience and your immigrant experience, looking at your parents.
And now you're looking forward at your kids and their path and how you think about what you're passing on to them of those things. You know, I think that's a really good question, Mike. I mean, I'm kind of amazed at how clear that was. But God bless you, man. Thank you. That's a really good question. I think for me, like, I don't really get into that level of detail. Like, my thing is more of the spiritual side, getting those values that we talked about.
And in terms of like how they participate in this world, I care, but I don't really care if they become entrepreneurs or if they are a teacher, have structure and they have two months off and that's what they like. But it's very interesting that, you know, my parents had that pressure in terms of, you know, you have to be successful, you have to make it so that there was that pressure. But I think
Michael Williams (18:05.294)
not having that pressure or not providing that pressure to my kids. It's really interesting. I really enjoy to see how they're so different. So like my oldest, she's very entrepreneurial on her own. She has like a business already. She sells things, she makes things, she's at fairs, like pushing her product, you know, like.
to see that and to support it. It's like really great. And there's causes that she cares about. And she's thinking about how can she do her business to support, like during the month of Ramadan, for example, she raised through selling her things close to like maybe five, $6 ,000. She's nine. Wow. So I feel really proud, but I really, I connect with like,
Like she saw that there was a cause that she wanted to support and that's connected to her value of like being generous and seeing that her tool that she has of being creative as a way to achieve, I mean that value, right? That's how I see it. And my middle daughter, I mean, she's really into nothing like that. She's into fashion. She's into like dressing up.
And she's much, I mean, she's younger, she's like seven. So there isn't, I don't, you know, in terms of what she wants to do, you know, it's more, I guess, she wants to live at home forever. She doesn't have that yet. And it's okay, because in terms of development, I found that every child is different. And one thing, I don't know, you mentioned I have three kids. You know, we adopted a boy from Morocco. So we have recently, I don't know, Luke, if I mentioned that to you, but,
So we have a, we, Missy and I, we adopted a boy from Morocco and he came with us about two, two and a half months ago. So we have a house of four kids now and he's nine months old. And the whole process of that is a total, I mean, amazing, transformative. It's similar to my experience in Egypt and I said how it changed my life. And this experience was like, I would say in terms of the.
Michael Williams (20:26.094)
span how I would think this was another experience that really reshifted focus. There's a couple things you've mentioned that poke at some stuff that I've been thinking about recently. And one of those is just the idea of being super present over anything else. And in some of the conversations, many of the conversations that we've had so far with other dads and also just
in various conversations I've been a part of, listening to people talk about their own experience with their father, they really, the stuff they talk about is like just doing whatever, like with their dad or with their parents or, and it's really just, they talk about just when their dad was like present with them, like in none of the other details tend to really matter that much. And I've been thinking about how it's easy to
get caught up in your, some tactical style of parenting or what is, you know, what is your approach going to be or what should I be, should I be pushing them toward activities or holding them back from activities? And it's like, just be around. And then second that you've talked about was be reactionary to like, how can I take the second, let them take the first step and then I'll help them with the second step.
toward whatever their interests are and don't have a plan. Let them set the course. And that's not easy, especially today. And especially if you're in any type of professional environment, any type of where people are talking about what camp to do or, you know, all this different stuff starting at crazy ages.
So be present and be reactionary. Absolutely, absolutely. Man, I'm connecting with your framing so well. I'm gelling with it, man. This is amazing. I think you're right. With the first piece, I personally struggle with it a lot. And this is where I, because I know it has to happen in terms of being present. But I lean on my wife a lot to kind of hold me accountable to that. Because.
Michael Williams (22:49.422)
You know, I think I have a lot of things going on. I'm like involved in a lot of things in our local community and I travel for work to New York and I've been doing it for some time. It's been a while. And so how do I, how am I present? And for me, it's not the, I know it's not the ideal solution. And what I do is I bring my kids along with me to the things that I have to do, like my obligations. So.
They're super involved with civic engagement, some community service types of things with our local mosque or masjid in our area. And I got into running, I don't know if you guys even know this, I've done like marathons before kids. And so now I'm getting back into it where like I take my younger kids out when I'm running in the park or something like that.
into hunting, fishing. So my oldest daughter, she's really into fishing. So it's like things I like to do, I connect with. So I bring them along with those types of activities. But I think in terms of the second piece, the reactionary piece, I think you're absolutely right. But I was recently, I'm dealing with something not personally, but in terms of crisis management. If you really think about not being right,
or not being first to market or not having the first word. If you really think about managing a crisis, it's kind of good to have a plan, but then react because you don't want to do too much. You don't want to overcommit to anything. And with kids, you know, it's like a blessing from God. I feel like that connection that I just have been recently dealing with, it's so true because the kids are, you don't want to mess it up.
You know, if anything that you don't want to mess up is the, how you raise your kids. And if you are over -engineering it, I think you're making a lot of assumptions about things that may not be at all true. And I mean, the fallout from that, it could be disastrous. And maybe you're not going to be even present because they already pushed you out of the scene. So I think you're absolutely right. And,
Michael Williams (25:11.118)
I can do that because my wife is more tempered. So I don't feel like it's me alone. So like that having that support system for me as a husband to know that my wife is there and present and she brings a lot of value to it. So I don't have that stress, that anxiety that kind of pushes us to that. I think for me, that's how I would characterize it.
Yeah, did you have to take yourself through, like walk yourself through any type of mental, I'll say mental gymnastics, but you want to be present, but you're also traveling a bunch. How did you reconcile that? That's a good question. So I used to travel a lot. So I think the plan was to kind of lower the amount of travel. So over time it became much less. A second is when I'm here, like try to do a lot of things with them. So
So it's a balance of you're saying like, you know, suburban life, it has its perks and it has its constraints. So like, you know, there's a lot of programming, there's a lot of after school stuff, there's a lot of things in the summer. So the way we connected with just, you know, like the, what the kids passions are and kind of connected like one or two things, let's kind of deep dive into them, see if you love it. And if you don't, let's try something else. So not doing like a bunch of things.
not being like a bus driver from one thing to the next. But a lot of people do that. And like I said, in terms of connecting, I try to bring my kids along to all the things I kind of do when I'm in town. So maybe hang it. So we have like, you guys know, you've been to the Middle East. So like morning prayer is very early, right? Fuzzer prayer is very early. So sometimes I take my kids with me on the weekend.
So we pray, but then other kids, some of the other guys, they bring their kids and we have coffee after and we talk about different things and the kids get to play and they're building relationships. They're seeing their dads with other figures that are dad -like, like uncles. And they kind of understand that their support network is bigger than that. And I think that really, in terms of going back to like how I was brought up, I had that.
Michael Williams (27:39.054)
but with family members. But I think in the US construct, you typically don't have that. And it actually takes away a lot away from the kids' development and how they see the world. And I think so things like that, like I said, all the activities that I do, I bring them along with me. And I think they appreciate it. But I'm told by some of these older guys who have older kids and saying, you know, when they hit that preteen and teen,
They're not gonna wanna come with you. But I'm hoping because of the time we spent together, this is where I have to kind of pivot now. Their interests and them, what they wanna do, they will drive that and I have to kind of change my schedule where me wanting to go fishing on a random Saturday, I think it will have to change to if they wanna do like a art fair or they wanna do something else. But so I think that's a lot of work for me coming up.
And I see that. So now I'm trying to work on how to recalibrate. So it's going to be a drastic change for me. You hinted at this. I'd love to hear more detail. But, you know, you were born in Bangladesh, immigrated to New York City and now live in Atlanta. I'd love to hear you talk about what was it? What was your childhood like?
in ways that are different than what your kids are experiencing today. And then what's it like for you to reconcile that difference? I think the search, the moving or relocating or doing all of that, it was in search of creating a similar atmosphere for my kids that I had growing up. So when I was in Bangladesh, I had this sense of community. I had this...
generous, uplifting environment, or at least from my perspective, I felt truly held by the people around me. And that was really amazing. So even when I transferred to the US in New York City in Bed -Stuy in the 90s, where it's not anything like it's today, we had to, we kind of pulled from that.
Michael Williams (30:04.59)
experience back in Bangladesh. But then I saw the other way where I was truly alone, meaning it was just me and my parents and my siblings. And it was traumatic, right? I can't find a different word, but it was a process that we had to reconcile. And in terms of reconciliation, it wasn't like this is normal. It was always like there has to be something better because I've seen something else.
experience something else. Obviously, there's opportunity that isn't there. But you know, so I was always searching for that. So like, Isaac was interpretation of what that family and being held and supported was like, and I felt that and I gave everything I had to that for that period of time. And so for the kids, there's some more parameters, right? They have to have a safe environment.
They have to feel comfortable. They're obviously Muslim growing up in America. This is post, you know, 9 -11, and there's like a lot of other things that has happened. So how do you reconcile? So, you know, my wife is from this area. We visited quite often before, and we found a community that had people who kind of, I guess, ended up where we are now, immigrant or non, born here.
kind of understanding the value of family and giving its due. In some other cities maybe because of the realities and it's more of a hustle type of environment. We have, in terms of family and value family might be different. I don't know, but in New York City, I felt it is a little different. So moving here was exodus to kind of search for that. I think.
It parallels with our spirit, my spiritual journey connected with a kind of kind of finding or hoping to find a refuge for for this way of thinking and being and growing a family. When when you look at ending up where you are in the Atlanta area, did you decide at first let's find our place and then identify
Michael Williams (32:25.294)
the Atlanta area as it, or was it going there realizing, hey, this might be where we want to land? I'm curious, like the order that that happened in, because one of the other things that's emerged in these conversations so far is how important community is and how in America we can, what makes, we can end up in having no community, especially dads, especially men, as they enter this stage of life.
And like what made sense? Like we're having a family in a place where it like made sense maybe professionally to be. And now we're entering this family context where it might make no sense to be. So I'm curious, I wanna dig into this a little bit because it's like so clearly a important topic that many of us might luck out and many of us aren't prepared for. I think this is where like the belief or the faith or the intention.
Intentionality plays such a big role. Like in my heart, I was searching for this safe haven. And obviously we had some experience with Atlanta, but I was truly trying to figure out like, how can I be that? Like the way you talked about as a dad, not having the support, the support that I need and what my kids would need based on my assumptions about, you know,
that and what my wife will need. And so my intention, I think it was the purest that I've ever had it for anything that I needed to find this space. In terms of Atlanta being the home, I mean, we had some investments here that we had property here that we rented out from before. And so when we came and we found some
I guess some remnants of that feeling or feeling like there's this culture or community, we wanted to just try it. So it was really a trial to see like before the kids really needed to even go to school to say, hey, let's try it for a year or two. And if it doesn't work, like we have New York to fall back on. It's not a bad place to fall back. I mean, I grew up there and Missy worked there for a long time.
Michael Williams (34:47.726)
So we tried it and I truly believe there's like the connection and the spiritual part of it is everything kind of easily fell into place. And in the Islamic faith tradition, there is this prayer. I don't wanna go into too much into detail, but if there's a big decision you make, there's a prayer that you do, which is similar to the regular prayer, but then there's this ask you have, it's like to God saying, hey, I wanna...
make this decision, I don't know if it's good for me, but if it is good for my current circumstance, my reality and the life after this, make it easy for me. But if it's not, make it difficult, make it a distant thing. And you know, this is called the istikara prayer if you want to look into it. But everything about moving to Atlanta is I mean, going back, I mean, obviously there's challenges in terms of leaving a
your home, but everything was very smooth, you know, like the people we met and how we did things. It was a truly divine intervention from my perspective, I felt like. But we were in terms of linear thinking as human beings and making choices and decisions. It was practical in the sense we had somewhere to live here. We just have to and we tried it.
We were open to other places, but it had to be somewhere close to New York in terms of flying back and forth.
But it started with this intentionality of trying to find this space. And I was very lucky that it worked out in the first place we came to. You big Delta flyer. Yeah. Unfortunately, fortunately. What kind of segue is that? After that heartfelt, spiritually like defining answer. Talk about a segue, Williams.
Michael Williams (36:53.358)
But I love it, man. Now I, you know, he's like crack, you know, when you, when you kind of spin off of it, you kind of don't know what you're missing. And now just give me some of that. Give me some more as they say. I'm in status. It's a real thing. One of the things you, one of the things you mentioned here is
Obviously partnering with Missy and the decision to move to Atlanta. What was it like going through the experience of having Missy convert to Islam? How did that conversation, and I ask this because it feels similarly connected to a place, a community, a kind of foundation for a family. But could you maybe talk about
How did the two of you together arrive at that decision? And what was it like to go through that? Man, I mean, this part of it, we might have to look at later. This part of it. But I think I'm just kidding. So, you know, Missy and I were very pragmatic in terms of, you know, starting.
journey together, getting married and stuff. It was very, because we connected on deeper level about life and all of that. But then before the idea of getting married, it was very contractual, but not in the sense like we went really deep into like values, what we wanted, like real things. Like if you now go back to like pastors or others that are supporting
couples getting married, we really ask those deep questions, like things that are fundamental and if they change over time, and it can, but if there's a likelihood of change, it could totally spin out of control. So we had those conversations early on, tough conversations, and I think we got to a point where she also had a lot of exposure to the faith.
Michael Williams (39:14.83)
and her travels and she reconciled between that and also our relationship and she made a decision that obviously she doesn't know a lot about it but what she knows it's positive and she was willing to
take that leap of faith, if you will, and also like what are my parameters, which was tough at the time as a man, as you said, as fathers, we don't have space, but I think as men also in the social and finding a mate, partner, life partner, that marketplace, if you call it a marketplace, in terms of things that we have to offer relative to the other party.
You know, it's limited. So like I had to really create some ideals, some values that I wasn't willing to negotiate. And there was a lot of others I was willing to kind of be like, I'm okay with everything. You know, like if you think about then when you guys knew me then, it was more like, I mean, no one thought like, you know, Izzaz was going to marry someone who's not from similar background or anything because of this.
Typically people do that even more educated, more Americanized you see people tend to. So my thing was fundamentally, spiritually and also principle level, if I could connect to someone, I was willing to kind of let go of all the other stuff, all the baggage or dogmatic things. And I think Missy appreciated that because she never thought that this was even a possibility. So I think we...
We came at it that way. I think we both saw that there's a trust in each other and also there's an ability to partner and we both didn't have anything. I think that financially not having much at the time really made it like basically one variable was zero and you could shelve it, right? Because if you come at different things, it becomes more difficult to kind of reconcile. And then, you know, going...
Michael Williams (41:28.942)
going through it, you know, initially our marriage, it was difficult with external parties, meaning family and folks that knew us individually. But once we got married, we really, I think, leaned on each other. And we had good practice because pre -marriage, we kind of made ourselves go through that. And it was not by design. It was just from the sheer stress of it because
I was seeing it from a perspective of it's totally a departure from anyone's expectation, right? And then now how do I do that? So I had to go through this strategic, you know, change process, which I had experienced with in a different way. So like, I remember like, I had to like, have these like types of conversations with different people and like kind of implant these things and people came to this realization on their own.
I was hoping for it, but I wasn't an expert in it. But like my mom, my dad, siblings, and part of it, I knew that, you know, I would have to, once we have a kid, it was going to kind of bring everything, all those sensors you implanted over the year or two, it'll come to life. And then during that process, you know, we took, it took longer than expected to get pregnant. So I think that was another thing we had to.
worked through. And that's when the idea of potentially even adopting came into our conversation early on in our marriage. So anyways, but going back to this point, we just leaned on each other and by the things we had to deal with, we just established a very strong partnership, a strong relationship, and we could talk about very difficult things.
Were there any specific practices that you used to do that? Like if I have something, if I want to have that conversation with my spouse, what recommendations would you give me? So, I mean, depending on the type of, like if it's like a life -changing thing, what I did was like have really clear conversations and I, it's a sitting down together and say, look, we need to talk about
Michael Williams (43:56.238)
different things. And these are the things I want to talk about. And these are the points that I want to get through. Because I'm not, as you know, very detailed, clear, list oriented. I became that way because my wife is. So I have to kind of mirror the way she receives information. So I have to itemize things, I have to list. And then I have to kind of
frame it properly because sometimes, you know, language, what you say is not important how you say it. And, you know, typically men and women have a different way of talking. So I would write a lot of notes. So I would write handwritten notes about either pre -conversation and definitely post -conversation because conversations would get difficult and maybe there were things that were misunderstood.
So I would always write a letter or note and a card and to say, look, this is what I was trying to say. Some things maybe were not clear or not the way I wanted it to be articulated. And I think she always appreciated that. So I think knowing your partner and what things they value as important. But listen, I mean, we typically don't have like big conversations other than the things that are fundamental things.
truly trust her with everything else, as long as we are aligned on the big things. That's always been how we operated. And I think every relationship is different, how relationships start and form are different. And I think that will kind of dictate, you know, how those relationships are built. But honesty and sincerity are, I think, key ingredients.
to go back to the beginning of this question and ask you, how did you convince yourself that you needed to narrow down to a core set of values and shed everything else? Like, how did you get to that point of view? Because I imagine, you know, you were saying this goes,
Michael Williams (46:20.206)
in the face of a lot of convention, a ton of expectation. How did you get there? I mean, I think I was always as, and that's like, I think I'm blessed to be very resolute in terms of knowing what I wanted in life. I think I was always that way in terms of how to get there. Didn't know that, but I always knew what I wanted. So when I met Missy, I knew that in terms of a life partner, this is the person in terms of what she
And I knew that in order for that to work, I had to go through that exercise of, OK, culturally you're brought up. There's like the Indo -Pak influence, and then there's a religious. What is more important? So for me, the religion was more important. So I had to shed everything else. And then within the religion, there's that. And then what is true to the religion? Are there any? So then I had to shed that.
I didn't want some, I mean, I knew my partner, my wife, future wife is going to, is a smart person. It has to pass the smell test, right? So what you're saying that this is what we want to do. This is what life is like. So I had to kind of cut through all of that. And I knew that to be true. And I think it was the, I think, and you, you caught it. It was a very important decision.
and the process exercise that I went through, I think that was very helpful because, if I didn't, I mean, it could have been disastrous, right? Expecting you do all these other things that are not really important. You've talked about in a couple of different ways here. You've talked about a clear and compelling vision for the community within which you want to raise your kids. So talk to us a little bit about that. What's your community today?
How did you figure out who was a part of it? What are some of the tangible ways that you support one another? And then the last thing, what's the vision or parts of the vision of how is a community you see yourselves having impact more broadly? In terms of our community, I think the most important thing is like we talked about this, your spouse and having a clear understanding. And then for us, it was being centered around
Michael Williams (48:46.702)
place of worship. Because we knew that Missy and I were very busy, both work, we have four kids now. We can't, we couldn't really do multiple things. It had to kind of go through an incubator, if you will, right? One source, and then from that, you can kind of figure out different avenues of interacting. So we chose intentionally to make the masjid or the mosque that space.
And through that we met people. So there was a screen, obviously, people who had a similar understanding of the faith. And obviously within that, you had to kind of screen through people who had different differences. So we're very thoughtful about that. And as we were building that, it was then we connected with people like starting to connect. So as you know, like I was kind of missing for a long time, right? Because I had to kind of
go through that change in order to get married to Missy and then move through and then the religious transformation. And so I am at a place where I have a good foundation, I guess, for the religious platform I needed for me and my wife and my kids. But then it's like, how do I now re -engage other people that are not maybe Muslim, but we share values, right? So for me, I was really...
I knew for myself how I am. The change for me happens drastically because that's my affinity. Like I can shut off, I can turn on really quickly, but when I am off, I'm off. So because of that, I knew that about myself. And so in terms of community, how we come together, it's really around the kids right now in terms of what they want to do, their interests. So, you know, Missy runs the Girl Scouts.
through the masjid for a group of 12 little girls at different age, two of my older kids, they're both in Girl Scouts, for example. So it's through the masjid and she has a group of women, mothers that are participating in it. And you know, Missy, she's leading that and connecting and they're doing so much work. They're doing activities. This coming weekend, we're doing a camping trip actually through that.
Michael Williams (51:14.158)
opened it up to the larger community where we are all going for the weekend on the lake and spending time together doing some team building stuff, having the spiritual component. We invited some people that are not Muslim, but are connected to our network here just to build bridge because the true fundamental belief that I have is that when you cut through the stuff and you build the relationship with someone,
you really give them the benefit of the doubt and you also want to see their perspective. So even if there are differences, you take it to the side, like I said, with the variables that are zero, even if they're not, say, okay, but we connect. But in order to do that, so my whole mission now is to, how do I implement that for me? And Missy's already advanced in that, she can do that. But for me to do that,
And then my kids to see, you know, how do we partner? How do we coexist? But in order to do that, you have to know yourself first. And I think as identity as a Muslim, as an American, what does that mean? It couldn't be confusing. And so now the focus is how do you re -engage? And one key learning that I want to share is like, you know, when we were talking initially, Luke, you know, when you come and you have this great vision,
or have a vision that you want to see articulated and you have remnants of success, you kind of idolize that because you're like, like I was just in the conversation, how this is perfect or this is amazing. But I think knowing that it is also reality, things will go wrong. Some things will not work. Some relationships for me, that's something that I had to cash myself on, right? Because it, because
The idea can't really go away just because something goes wrong. Because the idea is so good, but just because you have a bad experience, it shouldn't be a deterrent. What I'm working on is we're doing all different activities. There's a guys group here. So we went to, we did a trip to Colorado, just guys, fathers.
Michael Williams (53:38.382)
We hung out for the weekend and talked about different things, did exercises, went hiking. So I'm proactively doing those things for the group and then meeting younger people, very successful and smart. One of these guys are like, I'm not saying McKinsey is a thing, but that's a way to understand when there, but then...
Now he's like, you know, much younger than us in his late mid 20s, but he's thinking about marriage and he's like very connected to that idea that we were talking about. And he's thinking about kids and all of that. And he's running with different programs that we can do in our community. So we're just trying to expand the network and really be meaningfully involved in each other's lives. And that's, yeah.
There's something you mentioned that I really like in that if, I think it's easy to miss out on if church or a mosque or something like that is not a part of your life, which is using a screen, basically screening and filtering what people and activities are in your life.
and using a place of faith or place of worship as a starting point for that is an incredible resource that a life of faith provides. I also think a lot of people, like I don't have that. I'm somewhere in the agnostic to atheist to whatever spectrum. My view on faith has softened a lot with
some of the wisdom of more winters. And I'm just thinking about how people can use that idea. You know, like what are the things that are important to filter on in your life? You know, we've landed on the pretty neat community here in Madison that I daily have my own gratitude for. I locked into that. I did a little bit proactively, but I really locked into that. And I just want to...
Michael Williams (55:58.574)
Ultimately flag this idea of I to me that's an incredible way to think about life is what am I what am I screening through the people and and what are the things that I really want to Be proactive about in making you know in those decisions. I think there's a profound Calmness that comes to one Comes to oneself when you know that you're not in control of the outcome So I think religion any faith tradition
Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, any ism, I think that fundamental value, I think, is there in some form. I think in Islam, it's one of the biggest principles, is that you have your intention, you check your intention, and you do whatever you can. Like you said, you did some things, but the luck factor,
from the religious perspective is that that was by design, right? So to kind of, as a person who's constantly thinking like I am and you are and Luke and others, to kind of leave that piece in terms of the outcome to not yourself in terms of going after the result. And even as an entrepreneur, going back to that point, I think it's a critical misstep entrepreneurs have is when they're trying to control the outcome.
You have the idea and formulation and effort and you got to bust your butt on the effort piece. Yes, you got to do that. But the outcome and the beauty of the religion, I think that framework, it transcends your control. But then it's a shared experience. And if you're a Christian, you have a shared experience with others who feel that way. And even if you are not, if you don't believe like I say, I don't believe
all the doctrines of Christianity, but I as an outsider can say, well, there is this sense of intentionality and this collective experience, shared experience that really supports that. So I think religious, that framing, it really takes away the power away from you. And I think as humans, psychologically, lack of choice.
Michael Williams (58:25.806)
it actually becomes an empowering tool because the more choices you have, the more options you tend to have. I think it freezes you because if you have like a hundred options in picking condiments at a restaurant, very rarely you know what you want. You kind of go through everything, you get confused. So I think having some framework, I think we're made that way where we need some type of direction.
What have you learned having now? It sounds like you put a lot of effort yourself into arranging events with other people in your community. It sounds like Missy does the same. You're proactively putting yourselves out there creating opportunities for engagement between yourself and others and between others and others. Some people might be nervous to put themselves out there.
Or especially, especially men as we get older, it's the, the, the narrative at least would have you believe that it gets harder and harder to meet new friends that you choose. What have you learned so far? And what would you say to people who might just be starting, you know, Hey, I w they're listening to this. I want to start more proactively building my own community. I'm just kind of curious, like what you've taken away from your experience in that regard.
It's interesting. I think, like when I moved to a new place, like a new change in your life, it kind of shakes you in the sense that your assumptions are not the same. So I think in order to be able to be open to building relationships, and not everyone is extroverted, and people are introverted, and we connect with people differently, and keeping all that in context, I think
we are less prone to building meaningful relationships is because our rigid framing, like we kind of already know things. We already, when we feel like we know everything, we know how we want to live and this is a one way to get to this outcome and it's already defined. I think when you, the operations of how to get there, if you're too connected to that.
Michael Williams (01:00:48.878)
I think that's what limits us in being open to building new relationships. So like for me, I knew the principles, like what I wanted is connected to my faith, but I didn't care if the guy that I connected with was 55 years old or 65 or he was 22 because I needed, I just want, I cared about that. I think I was open to that because I had a real need.
for that connection. And I also was open because of my need that it doesn't have to be someone who is going through the same thing in terms of age, demographic, types of work that we do. So some of my very good friends have kids in college that I connect with because fundamentally, vision -wise, we're very aligned in terms of how we see
ourselves, how we see community. But I would say that though, you bring it up because it is very rare. Because so it's not easy, I don't think. But most of the time, I think it's easiest when you change your environment, because you have to force yourself. So like, I wanted to change my environment. So I was proactive about that knowing myself and you know, travel like I said, when we were in a new place, like
How do we experience things? It was very alive. Like we felt like we're so connected because we were just experiencing everything for the first time. And I just needed to do that. And once I did it, like all of that stuff was more reactionary. But now thinking back, I would say this is why it happened that way, you know, from our perspective. But always my caveat is, you know, it was designed as
God is the ultimate planner and it comes into fruition in the way it's supposed to. Well, I think it's incredible how far you can get when you know what your values are. You have those out front and you take a little bit of action to try to connect on that level. I mean,
Michael Williams (01:03:16.91)
All I have so many checks in the positive column of, of if I just take a half a step first myself, the reaction that I get from others is like so incredibly positive. Like people are thirsting. I think, and I've said this a few times, but I think men in particular in my background, I carry a lot of baggage about like connecting emotionally with other men. I, you know, I have all this just
from being diddly dunk middle schoolers and high schoolers and everything you get made fun of if you show emotion or like sadness or weakness or whatever. And now the reaction is so positive when you try to do it, at least in my experience, like when I have tried to do it way more often than not, it has been so positive. And I think to take that the other side of that, it's like, what's the downside?
Right? To your point around baggage, right? Like, we learned all these behaviors because getting made fun of in middle school was like an experience of death. When was the last time a 38 year old man made fun of you because you opened up to him, you know? Could I please drop this like 30 year memory that is like hasn't played out in 20 years, definitely, you know? Right.
It's crazy how long that stuff just like sticks around for. I mean, you know, it's interesting you say that, you know, in terms of I was listening to someone give a presentation actually like this weekend and it was around trauma and how communication helps with trauma. Any sort of communication. It could be an action. It could be words. It could be. You know, hugging each other, whatever it is, as long as there is a community.
communication aspect, the body and the brain starts to condition itself and starts to make sense of what happened, even if it was traumatic. So I think what you're saying is the first step of just getting past it, but when you do, like talking about it now, like you sharing that little piece, which is not under the surface yet, there's a lot more there, right, to unpack.
Michael Williams (01:05:40.366)
This is already, I can see it, even your face and the way your eyes and everything, you're like, now, if one were to ask you a question, I would say that you would be more inclined to share more about. And that sharing, it really opens to the healing. And it's really amazing. And this person was talking about war zone areas where he has visited, where people have so much trauma.
And how does he cut through all of that? And it was fascinating. So I thought of that when you were sharing.
This is really powerful stuff. One of the things that I would love to touch on just as it relates to the sense of community and what you're building is, is as to invite you to share a little bit. You and I have talked about it a little, but the, the idea of your community having impact elsewhere and thinking about.
this group of people, not just as support for your family, but going out and kind of having this broader vision of what a community could really be. I would love to hear you share some of that with us. So that is like the ultimate end result is when you can get a group of families and kids to go and build. I think that's the vision, but.
in building up to that. So the things we do locally is, so one of our good friends, she runs, she's executive director of an organization that works with refugees that are coming from overseas and being oriented to that Atlanta area. So Missy, before, you know, in college years, she was really involved in that work as a college student. So we kind of connected with that organization and
Michael Williams (01:07:40.046)
You know, we take our kids there, we meet these other families with kids and we, you know, make baskets of things that they need, like orient, you know, it's like ISAC orientation, but for refugees. So people set up their homes, apartments, and then we do care packages for these families. Obviously through, you know, the Girl Scouts, they have, they engage with all the local charity organizations and
and not -for -profits in the area where they volunteer their time. In terms of other meaningful things, like, so our mosque, our masjid, you know, I'm involved in. So one of the projects we're doing is creating a community space, community center, and a place of worship. But it's the first one in the world to be a...
regenerative. So regenerative building. So in terms of how do we give back more than we take that concept and we are in the process of starting that construction. So and the city, the local municipality, the city officials, like everyone is coming together to support it. So now we're trying to figure out how do we launch this initiative and get, you know, wider recognition and support.
And we're working with, for example, the Candida building in Georgia Tech. They're like an advisor. So kind of connecting and partnering with different people and, you know, the brothers, I guess the men, the fathers, as we were saying, we on our own haven't done much in terms of giving time and resources to the larger community. But as a family, all of us, we have done those types of engagements.
But I think the next step is, and I think it's interesting, as men in that age, I feel like we have a lot of blocks in terms of how do we as a group give back. And this is this thing we're trying to figure out. So right now we're doing a retreat for men, which is coming up in like a couple of months where we're going to come together and kind of understand
Michael Williams (01:10:07.886)
How as men, how do we partner together and have younger people coming in their teenage years and doing programming, more of like a conference, but it's in the wilderness type of camping type of thing. And trying to, it's more difficult. I think in the whole family construct is easier and that's how we have been connecting and giving back to the community.
We always like to end with this question, which is what advice do you have for any future dads or folks that are getting ready to be a dad? I think there's layers. So one fundamental thing in terms of knowing your values and really spending time to understand what they are. And my hope is that you connected to something bigger than yourself. So even for the agnostic or the one that is still searching for
I don't want to say guidance because there's a negative connotation, but searching for something and to have that concept. In terms of the life partner piece, I think it's obviously there has to be a sense of attraction. It may be through emotional, intellectual, physical, and a combination of that. But I would say to acknowledge it and also put it to the shelf.
you know, if you will, for a second to say, how would that person be a dad, in our case, be a mother to your children? And I think that is the question that we should answer because ultimately, 99 % of people getting married, if they can physically, would like to have children. That's my assumption. But I think so if that is something we want, you know, to have kids, we should think about that.
And number three is to have very small weddings and buy very inexpensive rings. I mean, I tell you this, I didn't do the research, but I think in terms of the people I've met in my life, in terms of happiness and contentment with the amount of money they spent is an opposite negative correlation between the two.
Michael Williams (01:12:35.278)
And I would say this about me is that I had a very small wedding, like my religious wedding, it was at my parents' home with maybe seven to eight people. And you know, Islamically, you know, it's like a contract, every marriage agreement is a contract, but it's funny story. So it's like, you know, you have to give a gift to your wife. And typically it's like, you know, a reasonable amount of money.
And, you know, Missy knew to this concept and I'm also, you know, in my twenties, like, so she was like, just a dollar, you know, is the gift. So, so I think from that, it's just amazing, you know, where you end up from where you started. I think that is, I mean, I know it's funny, but it is such an important thing. Even if you have the means or your family is supporting you to have a grand.
Ball, you know, please fight the urge to not do it. I think it will pay dividends in the future, God willing. Thank you to Azaz for an excellent episode. We had a couple technical difficulties during that one, so hopefully the tech team can work all that out in post -production. A couple things that I wanted to flag for the folks listening.
And the big thing to me was, is Zaz's penchant for being extremely intentional on the values that he lives his life with, how he chose his partner and what really mattered to him. And then, how he created his community. I spend a lot of time being appreciative of the community that I have, and I spend a lot of time thinking about men who might not have that.
And hopefully this provides a resource to get started making sure that the life and the environment around you is how you want it to be. So I loved hearing from Azaz on that. There's definitely more to talk about with him when he comes back. But I think there's a lot for folks to chew on in that, in that regard in this episode here. Yeah. I think for me, a couple of the big things that stood out the first, I'll let go. One of the things you said was.
Michael Williams (01:15:00.814)
I was blown away by his own work, his internal personal work to identify and then live by a core set of values. I walked away from that part of the conversation, totally inspired to continue that work for myself and also figure out how to support that work with more people. You know, it's just, if we all had more clarity and confidence in that kind of core foundation, what lives would we live? So I was really inspired by that.
And also I just, the second big thing is I was so struck because today, at least in so many of my circles, the narrative is so strongly anti -religious for so many reasons. And it was so fascinating and in many ways inspiring to hear Azaza's perspective on the good that comes from a life centered on faith. And I know that, you know, that is gonna be something that I'm gonna be thinking a lot about.
for myself. It's kind of opened up, you know, this question of religion or spirituality, its role, not just for myself, but for my family and for the broader community in a way that I'm going to be spending a lot of time thinking about. So I thought that was also fascinating. Yeah. And hopefully if you don't resonate with the religious flavor of it,
The principles are still very applicable. It doesn't have to be through a religious screen that you apply this. So I hope that doesn't create a blockage for anyone. You know, if I had to choose between the two camps, I'm probably closer to that camp and I still can see plenty of ways that I can use these ideas. So, I hope we can kind of have it, have this in a positive light, you know, regardless of what your orientation might be. So thank you.
And we will see you folks on the next episode, coming at you. 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.
Michael Williams (01:17:20.27)
Come on in, baby. We'd love to have ya.
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