Kevin: My High School Daughter Has A Huge TikTok Following

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Michael Williams (00:04.129)
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 (00:40.11)
Welcome everybody in today's session. We're going to be covering a topic. I know many of us. Dad spent a lot of time thinking about we're going to be diving into the world of social media. What it's like to be a dad as our kids navigate the world of social media, the good, the bad, and the scary. Our goal today is we're going to be discussing lessons learned the hard way through experience and hopefully walk away with a bit more perspective on how we're able to navigate this world with a bit more grace.

more attention, and hopefully a lot less anxiety. As a reminder, no one here is pretending to be an expert. We're here because we're curious, we're engaged, and ultimately we just are trying to be better dads. So with that, I am real excited to introduce our guest today. I consider myself lucky to have worked alongside my friend here, Kevin. He is truly a one of one. Kevin was born.

in Grand Rapids, Michigan to a proudly Polish family. He went to West Point where he was an inside linebacker, starter and captain for the army football team. Still holding a record for third most tackles all time. If you ever have a chance to meet Kevin in the real world, you'll understand why he looks like he was built to tackle people. After school, Kevin stepped into his

leadership role as tank commander, commanding troops across the globe for seven years. He then went on to get an MBA, Notre Dame, 12 good years at GE. And finally it was brought into my life when he joined the Redox team as our head of sales, where he was absolutely instrumental for five, more than five years. Kevin has a wonderful wife who keeps him in line, two incredible daughters, and a rarely discussed dog. Kevin, what is up?

What did I miss? Luke? It's awesome. And I didn't expect that. So thank you. I hope I can live up to that here in the next night hour to 90 minutes. But, yeah, two amazing daughters. Exactly what I deserve. First statement for dads out there. The good Lord does not give men women to raise who are not capable of doing it. So trust in yourself. You can do it. There you go. I like that. All right. So let's jump right in.

Michael Williams (03:08.27)
Let's get started. So how would you describe your overall strategy as a dad? What are the kind of top three to five priorities you think about when you think about yourself as a father to your two daughters? Yep. I think, you know, at the end of the day, job one is to keep their head above water. Right. And you do that a handful of ways, right? I think when it comes to daughters specifically, confidence, confidence, confidence in self.

image is incredibly important because my wife having obviously lived the life of being a woman, that was really important to her. And she taught me, right? She taught me about middle school. She taught me about elementary school, what it's like to be a girl. So instilling confidence, making sure that they have a very high opinion of themselves is incredibly important. And probably the first thing that I think about when I think about what did we do right?

And how did we, how did we execute properly? That's number one. I think number two is it's okay to have discipline, right? Understanding the right, the wrong and the consequences when you cross those boundaries, right? And I think that's important. Think children, specifically daughters who have very little boundaries because everything is given to them can be misleading and can be dangerous. So that's number two. Make sure you set very clear boundaries.

make sure they understand that decisions have consequences, whether they be good, great or bad. And that's part of growing up in life and learning. I think three is making sure that you and your partner have an agreed upon strategy of who's going to do what. You can't do everything. I mean, you can try, but it's really difficult having a very agreed upon.

Contract with your partner that says I'm gonna do this You're gonna do that and we'll talk a lot more about that later in this episode here But and have a very clear strategy so that you guys have a plan Because you know from my army days and from Mike Tyson right? Everybody's got a plan of the punch in the face writer to you and you enter into some adversity You need to be able to fall back on that plan that you and your partner ever agreed to Going to back to number one there. What are some of the ways that you? instill confidence

Michael Williams (05:34.03)
and if you can recall, I'd be curious how you'd answer that at different life stages for your kids. That's a great qualification. Like I really appreciate that. You know, I would say when it comes to confidence, encourage them to do things that make them uncomfortable. Let's make it as simple as getting on a bike without training wheels. I can see in my mind's eye right now, as I'm talking to you, running up and down.

A street in Minnesota hanging onto the back of their seats. And when they said, dad, don't let go, don't let go. You need to be strong enough to let go. Right. And let them know that they can do it on their own. Right. And that's how things get started. So give them the opportunities to put themselves in positions that maybe be a little bit uncomfortable, but you know, because you're an adult coming out the other side, they're going to have a life lesson and it's going to be breed confidence. So.

I'd say, you know, from the very beginning that that's a great example. I think once they get into middle school and I'll tell you what I was not prepared for what girls go through in middle school. I was fully prepared for what boys go through, but I wasn't really scared. But I was not prepared for how, how critical they can be of each other as they're growing up in that really weird time.

And so continuing to remind them text messages, because that's when they will talk about that later. But whether it's a random text message, whether it's a, you know, a morning breakfast conversation or it's an afternoon, bry fest continue to reinforce with them what they know is true, which is they're capable. They're beautiful. They have talents, right? There's things that they can do that nobody else can do.

Don't underestimate in continuing to enforce, you know, fill up their personal self -worth because it gets torn down and that school balls in the middle school might give you one mind. Think about today, right? I've got two college students in sororities at, you know, doing different things on social media, and then just continuing to praise them what they do well and be okay. Okay.

Michael Williams (07:59.118)
Some feedback on, Hey, listen, I think you can do this better. Let's rethink this. Right. And so having that real straightforward adult conversation with them today is kind of a new, a new journey we're on. Did you have to course correct the way that you did those things in terms of, you know, two different, two different children might take two different approaches. You know, how did you, how did you kind of navigate that?

of like figuring out what is what they respond to. Yeah, this is I could give you an example from today that this happens on a daily basis. My two daughters are completely different. And while much of the kind of the base work kind of holds true for both where it comes to confidence, self -worth and continue to build that ego. There's different ways, right? So. My youngest is not a talker.

or a lover, she's a doer. She gets her self -worth by accomplishing deeds and hanging awards on the wall, right? And being at things that she can point to. My oldest is pretty much like her mother. She is very touchy -feely. She's very gentle. She's very caring and at times probably to a fault. To where when someone else doesn't...

meet the expectations she feels terrible for them, which ultimately starts to reflect on her. So you've got to understand, right? That each person responds to a different type of leadership in, in, in parenting. And I would argue that's no different in your work life than it is probably in your family. Last question on that is, did you follow your intuition or did you try to

read a book or have some self study about how to do that. Cause it's still, I have a daughter, 19 months, and it's still like a little esoteric to me about, and I agree with the principles of that, but I'm kind of thinking like, okay, how do I start now? And how, what am I going to do in five years? So I'm just kind of curious how you picked up the ability to connect on that level with, with two daughters. First and foremost, my wife.

Michael Williams (10:19.662)
She was she was very instrumental in educating me and teaching me about how girls go through life. That's one. I mean, I dabbled in some of the basic books, but really nothing was earth shattering or profound that I found. The vast majority of it was keeping your head on a swivel and depending on that plan that you and your partner put in place. But simple, sometimes you just got to step off. You know, you just got to step off and say, let's go do this.

And figure it out as we go. Yeah. So tell us a little about you. You've mentioned, you know, you have, you have two daughters. Let's talk about your oldest daughter and her social media following. Just kind of give us the background and what is it like? Oof, this could take us our whole time. So just, just to be fully transparent, right? Social media was not part of my life like it is yours. so that's a little bit different. I probably don't know what I don't know.

which is probably makes it a little less scary than it is for you guys. Now it's a big part of my, my wife's life, which was extremely helpful. And we'll talk more about that, but social media was not a big thing for me. So first things first, I was just thinking about this today as we were preparing for this. So my, and I doubt I would be interested in your guys's feedback on this. We were able in 2000, 2015, the girls didn't have phones or a computer.

until they went to middle school. And I don't know if that's the norm today or not. My guess is it's probably not for a variety of different reasons, some good, some bad. So number one, the girls didn't really have exposure to a significant amount of the internet and social media until they were, you know, seventh and sixth and seventh grade. So I don't know if that's the case today. So that's just number one. I just want to kind of set that baseline. There is a time component here. And so, you know, Ainsley is, has always been a performer.

She was a dancer, she was a cheerleader. She was always the first one looking in the mirror and the last one looking at it on the way out, right? So she's always had a gift for that. Scarlett, not so much, just because she's too busy doing stuff. But Ainsley was the first person to get on Snapchat. She was the first person to get on, what was the pre, not TikTok, but the one that the -

Michael Williams (12:47.662)
with the Jake Paul brothers vine and all. Yes, that's it. Bye. That's when it all started in my life. This thing called vine and the introduction of the Paul brothers. She was a big fan. In fact, I think she made me buy her a t -shirt or something else. And that's kind of really where it got started, right? She kind of got into that and really enjoyed that medium medium. really enjoyed kind of the exposure that she got and really started to kind of dabble in just kind of the voyeur of social media.

not necessarily participating. And then I heard I were just texting back. I mean, and then tick tock hit, right. And tick tock hit when she was kind of moving into that eighth grade level and she really had a lot of fun with it, right. She really had a lot of fun with it and she started to really spend a lot of time. she really started to invest. And I think the vast majority of that was because the feedback that she was naturally getting was very positive.

Interesting. Very, very positive, very simple, mostly friends, right? Who she knew. And then we can talk about if you want what happened in 2019 and 2020 and beyond, because that's a completely different social media experience that I'm happy to dig into and talk about. So so for the past, so for the first part of it, like I would say, it was pretty innocent. It was pretty small.

And, you know, she, she really just enjoyed it and did it for fun. But there became a point when she started to move into her eighth grade year and ended as a freshman, that it really started to become a much more significant investment by her to ensure that she was multiple takes, multiple edits. And she's done some really creative stuff. And we can talk about that too. But that's kind of how we started.

What was that? I'm very interested to dig into what happened in 2019 and 2020, mostly through, again, this is a podcast for dads. So through your lens, what, what did it feel like, what happened and what did it feel like as you went from this? Like, it sounds like very friend focused. I know these people, the feedback, you know, I can put names to faces to what it is today. Like talk us through that ride and what was it like for you and your wife?

Michael Williams (15:15.054)
It was a ride. I probably wasn't as close to it as I should have been, but that's because that was our plan. Right. Christie was the master of social media. She had the girls on life 360. I'm assuming you guys know what that stuff is. She was on all of their social media accounts. She was as close to it as she could possibly be. And my play was to kind of stand back a bit. And this ends up helping us tremendously in the future. My, my, my, I was at the macro level.

kind of just watching everything play out and watching all three personalities. But specifically, we just talk about my wife, Christie and my daughter Ainsley. And in 2019, as she became a freshman, she bought the instruments that all the professional Tik Tokers have. Right? So I started to see, you know, gear showing up in the house, which is what I started to be like, this isn't just holding the phone up against the, the Coke can.

Right? This is now becoming a major process. And so in 2020, obviously all everybody's life was turned upside down. She really doubled down on Tik Tok and really spent a lot of time and energy and dollars investment into her lighting, her visit, her, her visuals. She was maturing as a woman, right? She was

always been beautiful, but she came very attractive, which obviously helps on a visual medium like this. And she started to take mainstream ideas. Think of it as songs, podcasts, whatever. And she would basically interpret it through her own lens. And that's when we started to get the worldwide file.

was when she took very common popular themes that were on social media. She transit. She translated that through her lens and her life and her opinions. And Christie came to me one day and said, there are people in Russia and India and Australia who are following and commenting on your daughter's videos. That's when it hit me. I was like,

Michael Williams (17:35.822)
How is that even possible? Right. And so she very quickly rocketed to a half a million followers. And I was, I was just taking it back. Right. Because of my naivety when it comes to social media as a medium, but Christie, and this is kind of, I'll talk you through this, but this is kind of the nugget that I want to leave with you guys as dads is Christie was in her.

DMs her responses. Like there were nights my wife would stay up reading each of them. Right. And it got scary. It got scary. The thought process that somebody in another country, another state, another city could recognize the surroundings and technically could find her. And that's what it kind of got real for me.

When I kind of said, hey, listen, we need to make sure that we're editing properly here. We need to make sure that we're taking into consideration some of the negative repercussions of what could possibly happen. But I will tell you this. Ainsley and this is I this to her to this day has matured her dramatically. And that is she had the innate power or willpower or maybe just thought process to not

read the comments. Wow. As much as my, as much as my wife does. And she got to a point where it became such a big deal. There were so many people commenting. She had half a million followers that she was just like, dad, we don't read comments. We don't, we just don't do that anymore. She did initially, but she got to a point where, you know what? I don't even read the comments. We'll leave that. If mom wants to read something, that's fine. But

There were times at night when she was at the height of her popularity that she would say, you need to, you need to look at this. And some of the stuff, as you guys know, cause you're on, you're on the social media is. Terrible. And she just was able to get with her hub held high and only focusing on the positive and not on the negative. I know that's a hell of a lot easier said than done, but she's been able to do it and she still does it today.

Michael Williams (20:00.334)
and we could get into kind of where she is now, because now we're at the point that I've been looking forward to, which is the monetization. As a sales leader of the populate of the popularity. Clearly. So I'll give you one kind of dad thing that probably goes well here. So when she, in the height of her popularity, you know, when she was, you know, over a half a million followers, I took a couple of her videos.

And I went to Notre Dame business school with a gentleman who works in kind of, I don't know what you would call it, but basically he's in, he's in the movie business out in LA and he ran, he was the chief marketing officer for funny or die, which you guys may have heard of or not. yeah. yeah, exactly. So I sent him, I sent him her link and I said, Hey, take a look at this and tell me what you think.

And give me some feedback because I don't, I mean, I don't know what I'm looking at, but man, man, it's super popular. So he wrote me back and he took a couple of days and he wrote me back and he said, Kevin, she does one thing better than I've seen the vast majority of tick tockers doing is she's consistent. When you show up on her feed, you know what you're going to get in. That is the key to developing a stable, large audience is consistency.

And that relieved me because I was afraid he was going to be like, you know, she's doing this, she's that she's exploiting here, she's exploiting there. And he's like, no, she's like, she's great. She's fantastic. And she's incredibly artistic. And it's really allowed her today as an adult to really be an expression of her artistic talent. Did you have to set boundaries at any point? Or did it? Yes.

What did that, and you mentioned your wife being, you know, accessing the direct messages and being closely involved with the accounts. Could you talk about a little bit of what you're like, as you saw this growing, what did you put in place to say, allow the growth to happen? This is an awesome opportunity for someone to experience, but let's also not let it spiral out of control. A hundred percent. So, you know, we've always talked about.

Michael Williams (22:23.406)
Don't put anything out there that you thinking that you can always take it back because you can't. Once you hit send, it's there forever. No matter what you think you can or cannot do. So we were very strict on them both around that. I would be lying to you, Mike. If I told you there were not nights in which Christie's reading through her stuff where she walked down the hall and said, I want you to take those two down for X and Y reason. Obviously.

You guys know this, the sexualization of the internet and social media is through the roof. And we were very clear that that is not how we're going to make a brand. Okay. We're going to make a brand through creativity, through spontaneity, through consistent delivery. We are not going to make this about, you know, sexual exploitation, right?

Did you face any resistance to any of that type of stuff or? I think the form of resistance that we met was when we would say, don't do not post that. Why? That's not that big of a deal. Well, it's maybe not be a big deal in your mind, but it's a big deal in my mind. And so this is a team sport. This is not a democracy, right? This is an autocrat.

This is a team sport, right? So, but there were times that that happened. I can't remember, Mike, a time in which Kristi and I together saying, we don't approve of that, where we went, you know, knock down, drag out. There was maybe some push out, push back, but ultimately we had the final answer. And was that something you, did you set that expectation ahead of time or did that emerge?

It emerged. Yeah, it emerged. If I told you that we were out in front of this and that's like no way this just hits you like a wave and then you just got to react to it and continue keep swimming. Like I said, keep everybody's head above water. That's the key. It was incredible. And so I'll show you a couple of things that are maybe unique that I think are pretty cool stories as well. So when she, 2020,

Michael Williams (24:43.758)
she's rolling, she's, you know, everybody's home, everybody's watching, everybody's not shooting, but everybody's watching right all over the world. And so, when that happened to your point, like Kristi and I were like, what are we going to, like, we don't know how to handle this. So I don't know if you guys know this, this name, but she's a famous, Tik Tokers and Instagram or her name is Hannah Malosh and Hannah is actually from, Grand Rapids.

And she was a big time TikTok star and we had some family friends in common. So Christie reached out to her mother and said, Hey, my husband's from there. You know, his cousins, yada, yada, yada. And they spent some time on the phone, just talking about what to expect. Like stuff you're talking about is keep it PG, you know, keep it non, you know, don't make it very controversial.

you know, just kind of continue to tell your line, know your brand and be true to it. And that kind of made us feel much more comfortable. And in fact, this is a crazy story. Hannah actually visited Ainsley here at our house for spring break, which was an amazing opportunity for her to have that conversation and say, Hey, listen, here's what I'm doing. And what can I expect? And Hannah would given her the, you know, the, the goes and no -goes and here's what worked and here's what I learned. And here's where I failed and here's where I succeeded. And

She spent like three days here, which was super powerful. And I think it even gave Ainsley even more confidence that she, what she was doing was right on target. And you know, she continued to flourish, but no, we by no means had this stuff figured out until it happened to you. Part of me is interested in like how this plays out in a family dynamic. So were these like discussions you would all have at the dinner, like the dinner table, was this like you, you and

and your wife have a discussion and then you like sit her down. What's the like family, like you use the word team sport. I'm interested, like how did that play out in your household? So it kind of went from a one -on -one conversations initially between Ainsley and Kristi, my wife, where they would have these conversations kind of in private. But then when she got to the

Michael Williams (27:09.262)
level of popularity that she did, it did become a full team sport where everybody sat down. When I say everybody else three Scarlett, who's my youngest would she's in the door, out the door, in the door, out the door. But just having a conversation saying, Hey, listen, here's where we are. Right. Here's what we like so far. Here's what we don't like. Let's do more of this, less of that. And let's have a plan in place.

so that we can have some running rules, if you will, around what we're going to post and what we're not going to post. And there's many times where she'll be, I say that now she's been in college for a while. So there was many times when she was in high school where she would shoot stuff. And I mean, like, that's not postable. And she's like, I'm not posting that. I'm just, I said, okay. I mean, but it was constant. It was constant feedback. It wasn't like, okay, dinner's served. Let's talk about social media. It was all the time.

with every interaction that we had together. we were talking about it and not letting it be a secret. Right. One of the interesting things that I'm hearing is the setting up the dynamic proactively that you're collaborating with her rather than it being full on directing, which I think ultimately the buck stops with, you know, as you alluded to if

Like the buck stops with you if something is going to fly or not. But you, what I'm hearing is you really treated it like a collaboration and you're trying to put her, keep her in the driver's seat as much as possible. A hundred percent. I think what you're touching on is something I'm just thinking to myself. I'm reflecting on the idea of collaboration versus dictatorship. When she got as popular as she got, you're just trying to keep your arms around, right?

You're not going to be able to shut it off, right? It's, it's there. I mean, it's happening. It's happening to you. You can either try to fight city hall or you can try to roll with the bunches. And that's what we do. Right. We rolled with it. We were collaborative. We had some boundaries, but she ultimately was the one who made, you know, the decision on the vast majority of stuff. And then we monitor it. Right. We monitored it like crazy, because there was no stopping it. If you think that you can stop it.

Michael Williams (29:34.254)
you're heading in the wrong direction, in my opinion. So we talked a lot about this, but this is obviously it starts to impact everything. And you mentioned that. So how has it impacted her life? How has it impacted your life? What are some of the coolest things that's brought into your life? And then you started to touch on it, but what are some of the scariest things that's brought into your life? So I'll tell you the cool stuff is, I mean, we all kind of want to be, you know,

We want to be somebody when we're in high school, right? And Ainsley was a superstar. Right. I mean, she would go to school. Everybody knew who she was. Everybody wanted to be in her Tik Toks. that was really cool to see her flourish, build that self -esteem that I talked about from the very beginning. She was able to, you know, push the haters aside, which I know is much more difficult than possible.

and really dive into kind of her, her popularity. So that was, that was cool. This is a great, a great example. We're on spring break in Cancun, Mexico at whatever restaurant as a family and a girl, little girl, cause her, her following really started with little girls. A teenage kid came over to the house, came over to the table. You know, what happens next is like, are you tick tock queen? And she was like, yeah, she's like,

You know, we signed my autograph and I was like, are you kidding me? And can't come Mexico. This is happening. And there's tons of funny stories like that, but that was real. I mean, that was real. It didn't happen everywhere. She wasn't Britney Spears for crying out loud, but that was, that was really cool. That was really cool. And I think her sister, I do need to mention Scarlett because I know she'll watch this and critique me, but I think her sister was the perfect sibling to have.

because there was no, there was no jealousy. that was her thing, right? She was tick tock queen and Scarlett would get in the, get in the dances and out of the dances as she, she fit, but Scarlett was, you know, her interests were elsewhere, elsewhere. And I can tell you that had that not been a real dynamic, I can see where that could have been a problem. but when we didn't have to worry about, which was great actually. and then listen, just like, you know,

Michael Williams (31:59.31)
the little girls that want autographs can find her. The realization is Luke, to your point is you got to know as a father in the back of your mind that the, the, the dark web can find her too. Right. And so as she started to get really popular, you know, we were really cautious on anything shot outside, inside anything that had, you know, anything with our address, anything, you know, that would have surrounding areas. we actually,

stopped shooting at the high school, quite a bit because the realization is, that there are people out there that, you know, are not, are not good of heart and they've got some bad intentions. Thank God. As I sit here thinking right now, there were some absolute dangerous things that happened in her direct messages that, you know, Christie handled an alerted tech talk.

there was a handful of videos that when she put her spin on it, became very controversial to some people and, it got really heated. But the one thing that I learned, and I don't, I don't want to dismiss the dark side of this cause there can be was when she put out a video that everybody loved, her followers would increase 5%. When she put out a video that everybody hated her followers increased 50%.

And not that she did that on purpose, right? But when it was perceived through the public perception, it was really interesting to watch. Yeah. Was that a conversation you had when it came to incentives or is that something you all kind of just witnessed? Witnessed. Yeah. And then we, there were a handful of videos that we kind of said, I mean, it was really, really awesome. And you know what it is guys, you guys see this, the two sides line up.

She's not even in the conversation, right? But then the two sides of the opinion line up and they just feed off of each other. And there were a couple of times if Christie was sitting here next to me, she would tell you she was scared. She was definitely scared at some of the DMs. I was gonna ask you if I'm thinking again as a dad and it's like you have this thing you're talking about, you gotta wrap your arms around it, but it still exists in a specific place in your life, which is on the phone, on the internet.

Michael Williams (34:24.717)
And you talk about that story, that little girl coming up and asking for an autograph. Were there any other examples where it's like, holy shit, this isn't the real world, right? Where things happen not on your phone, but like in real interactions with people, again, good or bad. Like to me, that would be like a start to paint a picture of how big something like this could really be. I'll give you two examples. One happened today.

I went to get my haircut. The girl who's checking me in at the barbershop says, looks at my names on the reservations. Like, are you Ainsley's dad? I'm like, what is going on here? No, Ainsley's my daughter. I'm not her dad. Come on now. Put in that place a little bit. Right. So that's definitely where you're like, who I think the other thing was coming out of 2000 and really heavy into 2021, the

merchandise that started to pile up was significant. I think that's when it really kind of like hit me. Like this is real money here. Like people are sending. And so what we ended up having, and this is just an interesting tidbit. You had kind of brands would fall into kind of three categories. You have the real early startup brands who would send her stuff and be like, Hey, we would really like you to do this. But if you don't,

We understand. Then there were the middle brands who were like, Hey, we'd like you to do this during the random course of your, shooting. And then there were the brands who were like, only use this when you're doing this or that with this, right? It was three very big camps, but there wasn't a day, there wasn't a week in which there weren't multiple clothes, jewelry, nutrition, boxes.

up in our house. I mean, the person I feel bad for is the poor UPS and FedEx guys and gals. They were getting crushed. I mean, we still get stuff today. Her room is still full of boxes. And that was really cool. And it's really kind of, I think, helped her start to monetize this a little bit, which is really nice.

Michael Williams (36:46.574)
But did you have any specific approaches for maximizing her learning from the experience, both in general in life and also, you know, coming from business school, obviously working in business, you know, on the business side as well? How did you approach those, you know, maximizing that? Yeah. I didn't apply much business to it.

kind of viewed it as this is her franchise and it's for her to run and her to lead how she would like. I didn't, I didn't get, neither did my wife get hands on when it got, I came to the merchandising business aspect of it. It's been a really great experience for her to understand how commerce works and how things work in the real world that she's absolutely applying today. And I'll give you some specific examples at her at the university of Oklahoma.

in her sorority, in her internships. I mean, her savvy around how the economy is much higher than her peers because of her being in the middle of this. So not for me, but from her having to experience it, manage it, talk to people about it, it's made her very business savvy compared to her peers. Given where you are now kind of taking a big step back, what would you say?

are the biggest lessons learned for you and your wife. I think number one, have a plan like we talked about, right? Have a plan. This is this thing is going to happen. It is going to happen to you. It's not going to happen with you. It's just not just not how it works. And just be prepared to use common sense. Right. Be actively involved.

And we talk about grids blocking and tackling, right? Be actively involved, right? And I will tell you, my biggest lesson learned is to be a hundred percent transparent. I probably should have been more active. I probably relied a little too much on Christie to manage it. So that's a big lesson learned for me is, you know, if this starts to happen, whether they have 2000 followers or 500 ,000 followers, be engaged, be active. That was something that I didn't do a good enough job at. And I'll be the first to say it. So dads.

Michael Williams (39:04.878)
Don't make that mistake. I made it for you already. You know, so it's going to happen to you. Be active. And then I think what Mike talked about, which is like, don't let the, let the creative juices flow because there's a, while we're all talking about the bad in the scary in the dark, I will tell you with 100 % confidence, the upside and the positives that came out of this experience and continue to come out of it today, far outweighed any of the dark.

Stuff that everybody talks about. So that's kind of where my head's at. I think I wouldn't change it for the world. I would have been more engaged. But it was, it is still to this day of fun ride. You talked about this too. Don't think that it's isolated, right? Like to your point, when you get to this level of, you know, whatever followership it impacts everybody, right? It impacts everybody because you're in her inner circle.

And everybody, you know, kind of wants a little piece of that, right? It's like at a much smaller level. You've mentioned being active and being present.

And at least for me, and I think for my peers that, you know, you're 15, 20 years ahead of us sort of in the child and your child's journey. Yep. And at least for me, there's this pervasive question of how do you be a great parent? You know, of really like, like there's a secret to it that I need to discover, or there's these strategies that I need to discover. And I'm wondering,

based on your experience with this, but also then zooming out to in general, how much of it do you think is just being actively around? I think in today's day and age, physical presence has been more important than ever, given what we've all been through, number one. Number two, being a sales leader and being on the road,

Michael Williams (41:13.038)
most of their lives, there's a lot of ways to be presence without physical presence. And we've all learned that right during the pandemic. listen, the most important thing that you're going to give to your kids is not going to be their eye color. It's going to be your time. Right. And there's no better way to invest it. Right. Cause it, I know everybody says, it goes by so fast. It really doesn't. It really doesn't. It's a lot of work. If you're doing it right, if you're doing it right, it's a lot of damn work.

And I will tell you that there's nothing that'll make you more proud than sitting in my chair today, having two highly functioning university attendees sororities, whatever have living the time of their life. And the one thing I say to a lot of folks is the, what you strive for when you raise a girl is when you drop her off at school, wherever that is in the country, wherever that is in the world.

When you get in your car or get in a plane, you don't think twice about it. And I don't do that to this day, but that takes a lot of work for 16, 18 years. And so that's another thing I wanted to ask you about a little bit was your traveling for work. You're trying to be, it sounds, you know, involved with your, your kids. You're interested. How did you balance that?

know, what are some of the ways that you stayed involved when you're across the country or, you know, or whatever? I think you got to do what you got to do, right? To live your life as well, whether that's work, play, whatever. I don't play golf, number one, because when I'm home on the weekends, the last thing that I'm going to be doing is spending five hours with my buddies walking around the field. So when you are present, be present, make an investment.

Right. Don't beat yourself up because you're not present all the time. Make the moments that you are account. I think that's, that's, I don't think it's much more simpler than that. Right. And don't beat yourself up because you're making a living and doing what makes you happy. Right. But when you're present, be present. And when you're home invest, because you know, you're going to have to divest during the week. Well, there's no secret. So stop looking for it. Trust your gut.

Michael Williams (43:38.222)
The secret is work hard. Yeah, exactly. Play hard. Yeah.

I'm going to take a break from the script here and just, just as both of you guys are there, I feel like we've covered a lot of ground. Is there, is there other big areas, Kevin, anything big that you thought about in preparation or any, any kind of stones, big stones we haven't turned over yet that you want to make sure we hit? The one thing I do want to tell you, cause this is one of the things I've been, I've been thinking about a lot is I've been commiserating with my fellow 50 year olds whose kids are in college.

And as you look back and this, I think will be valuable for you and your audience because they wouldn't necessarily have this perspective. And you look back at your children's lives and who the adults they're ultimately going to grow up to. I think the one caution or the one piece of pressure I would put on all you dads is, especially when it comes to girls, because they mature so much faster than boys, you've got 13, maybe 15 solid years. That's it.

Okay. Because what you do after 16 is going to humble in comparison to what you do at six. So the clock's running, right? Don't think you can fix them or change them or B make them into different people when they get 16, 17. I can only speak for girls. I cannot speak for voice, but that was something that I have, I have reflected on.

often in the last, in the couple of months as they're both now in college, it's like, don't waste a minute. Be present when you're present. Like we talked about, but know that you've got to start now because your time will run out well before they turn 18. That is great advice. And also terrifying sitting on the side of parenting. I'm already writing the finish line, man. You guys just started.

Michael Williams (45:44.206)
Yeah. There's not an app for this, huh? Damn. But I will also say it to my part, like, I mean, there's nothing that we did or I did as a dad that was superhuman. Right. I just I was just me. Right. And. You know, your kids watch you probably a hell of a lot more than you know, just like just like employees.

Right? They don't do what you say. They do what you do. Your kids are no different. Boom. That's my knowledge right there. What do you think Mike? Any other, any other questions? How has the dynamic changed now that your daughter is older in college, managing it under a different roof and there's still a lot of the same risks. That's a great question. I think.

I know Christie is still deeply involved in monitoring what she's doing. It kind of, it also, there's a, there's a level of comfort and calmness because she's been running this play for six, seven years now that she kind of knows the guard rails, the dos and the don'ts. I wouldn't say it's ever on autopilot, but it's getting damn close. I think the other thing that is really, and this is a very specific, not, not a general comment, but she was able to parlay her.

success into real world opportunities in the social media space while she's been at college. So her social, this is, this is something that you may not, may not be, may not be obvious. Her social media presence and quality has really opened her up to a lot of the brands like Tik Tok, like all the pod.

the famous podcasts as an internship opportunity because she's different, right? She has that experience and they don't have to teach her how to manage social media. She's a math, she's got a master's class in it.

Michael Williams (47:56.046)
I guess that's what I would say is like, yeah, she's under her own roof now. But one thing I really love and I'm proud about her for is she's leveraging it into real world opportunity. Yeah. Could you talk about one or two of the other like coolest opportunities, whether recent or not that like, like what are the most interesting or unique things that came along because of the success? Well, I don't want to see Luke. We'll get into that guardrail that my wife set up on me right now. So

I don't know. Congrats, Mike. You found one. I don't. Yeah, she did. So take this for what you mean. She has a, she has significant and multiple opportunities of barstool sports and that makes sense, which is, which I think is amazing. Right. And then, she has her new, she has a nutrition company that fully sponsors her. You guys probably know what it is. I think it's called arsenal or something like that with an a it's an energy drink business.

that she's starting to monetize a tremendous amount and she runs all of the social media for her sorority. So it's been, it's, I mean, this, this, I will be shocked if she doesn't, you know, land, if you will, and excel in the social media world somewhere because of this experience. And not everybody has that experience, right? I mean, there's a lot of other dads out there who are probably like,

This is out of control. I don't know what to do. It's negative more than it is positive. I'm sure there's a ton of dark stories out there. Mine's not one. Mine's one of success for her and her ability to be mature, confident, and consistent in what she does. And so it's going to help her in the long run. So it can be a good thing. Did you have any friction yourself? Obviously, this is a new world for

I mean, for you, for us, of just the emergence of social media, this performative aspect that can become a huge part of her life. And maybe she's doing stuff that you think is weird or it's ridiculous, or I could see a lot of... It's so different from how I would live my life. Did you have any... And that could make me a bad guide.

Michael Williams (50:20.942)
to my child because of that. And there's stuff that you would have to work through. Did you find yourself bumping into those walls? How did you keep yourself positive in order to keep the situation positive? Yeah, I think I didn't expect or that it surprised me how constant it is. It's always prevalent. You don't get away from it. It's just there, right?

Because these things are everywhere, right? And so that kind of made me a bit uneasy. Like there was no break time. But as long as she was level headed and OK with it, I forced myself to be OK with it or at least let it continue rather than, you know, kind of inflicting my will upon her, because I don't know the social media world, but it it's surprising how

how prevalent it is at all times. Like we always talk about, right? You see it on the news, right? How much screen time is not too much. I don't know. Somebody can figure it out. Let me know.

Was there anywhere you went for advice? You mentioned talking to your wife. Obviously that sounds like a heavy... We talked to a couple other influencers' parents. I mentioned Hannah Malosh's parents was the first one. And then we would run across a couple others. And, you know, Mike, I'll tell you, the stuff that they told, nothing that they told us was a revelation, but the vast majority of those conversations were comforting because

We all kind of seem to be doing similar stuff and having a positive outcome. The last kind of question I have in this area is again, I'm thinking about myself. I'm putting myself in your shoes, looking at my daughter and you talk about how prevalent and pervasive and kind of never ending. Have you talked to her about burnout? Have you talked to her? Like how long are you going to keep this up? What happens if you don't want to keep this up? Like that's okay too.

Michael Williams (52:30.51)
Have you had those sorts of conversations? You or your wife had those sorts of conversations? I will tell you that college and football has caused her postings to come down dramatically. Naturally occurring. Naturally occurring. Exactly right. Like there's other stuff going on other than shooting my TikToks at my house.

So it's kind of taken its course naturally. She doesn't put as she'll probably kill me for telling you this. I don't believe she puts the same amount of time and investment and commitment to it like she did when she was in high school. So it's kind of naturally occurring to your point.

There's one thing you mentioned that I don't know if we elaborated on, which was the, what I would call the division of labor between you and your wife and how you were managing the situation. I'd be interested to hear more about that for this specifically, as well as just your overall approach to parenting and all the stuff that's got to get done. How do you, how did you land on your system? Well, do what's naturally, do what you're naturally good at.

Right? So under know what your strengths are as, as a couple know what your weaknesses are each and of ours are very, very distinct. That's not hard to figure out what they are. And then agree on a plan who's going to do what. And we did the same thing when it came to social media, like her strength was being in the details, being in the comments, watching every video.

Mine was more kind of at the macro level, talking to Ainsley about her self -confidence and how she was doing in school and things not necessarily tied directly to social media, but places where you want to dig in because they can be big caution areas regardless of social media or not. Right. So that's kind of how we've continued to parent our kids. Listen, this is what they'll tell you. And this, I think speaks speaks volumes about how we parent.

Michael Williams (54:37.166)
When you are in a low stress situation that to them could be highly impactful, they call their mother. When they are in a high stress, terrible, scary situation, they call me. And that's purposeful because that's what we're good at. Right. So they always joke at me. They're like,

Dad is the most stressed in the least stressful situations and the least stressed in the most stressful situations. That's the, they make fun of me when I, you know, take them out to dinner. That's what they say to me. And it's right. And it's purposeful. it's been our plan. There was a line that Kevin shared with, I can't remember if it was our leadership team or our sales team. He said, what do you do when you hear gunfire? And everybody's like, I don't know. Hit the deck.

He's like, you run towards it. That's where the enemy is. But he said it with a straight face. Cause that's where the enemy is and we're going to kill him. Just parent like that.

Michael Williams (55:52.366)
What's been the hardest part for you? that's a good question. There's a lot of stuff that's hard. I think the hardest part for me, and I alluded at this at the beginning, is I had no idea how hard girls are on girls. That really surprised me. I've just because I've grown up my whole life, as Luke knows, in a team environment. I'm an only child, by the way, just footnote.

I've always grown up in a team environment. I've never not had teammates and have never not held each other up and, you know, helped each other be better. Girls can be really tough on girls. And I had no idea. And I mean, it's still to this day surprises me. I could take you down a rabbit hole around this whole sorority system rushing.

And just women are really tough on each other. And like I told Christie all the time, you guys were so tough on each other, you'd be in charge of everything. How did you deal with that? You know, was it just having the daily conversations with confidence, self -image, but I mean, it's another planet thinking about a middle school girl. You have no idea. It'll be worse when you guys do. And it's, that's what it is. But here's the difference, Mike.

It, there's a difference between having an impromptu conversation with your daughter about insert topic, self, confidence image, you know, strength. It's a different thing than planning for it, making time for it, being purposeful for it, rather than waiting for an impromptu time. That's a difference.

One of those is a plan and a strategy. The other is just action, right? So put a plan in place and remind yourself. And I had no idea. I had to learn this. Like when they get to elementary schools, piece of cake for the most part, when they get into middle school and into high school, be ready, have a plan. Self -confidence is their father's voice in their head when you're not there. That's what I always thought about. That's a great, that's an amazing framing.

Michael Williams (58:13.038)
So your, your goal was to be that voice in their head. So when you talk about your plan, you know, without going into uncomfortable detail, does that mean you, you, you said, Hey, on this day, we're going to have a conversation, you know, we're going to have a conversation about this topic. Well, as middle school girls could go, I didn't tell them, I just told myself, I'm going to find a way to make, but I'm saying as you were building your plan, I'm interested in the level of intention. Now, again, this is think about.

Think about somebody who's got a sixth grade girl gearing up for seventh grade going, holy shit, what am I? Talk us through the tactical day to day, week to week with you and your wife, knowing you said, here are some topics and some themes we need to implant. My goal, be their voice. How did you literally do that? I think the number one in learning and understanding what they're going through, they're not going to tell you, you got to go figure it out, right? Because it's not what they want to talk about.

Leveraging their siblings is really powerful, right? To know what the great piece of advice, right? Leveraging. Listen, my girls obviously 18 months apart and they would fight like cats and Indians, all the times, all the times, but they always knew what the other one was going through and they always knew. And they always had each other's back, you know, outside of these four walls. and that's super, that's super powerful. But back to your question.

I don't think I said to myself Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but when we move, you gotta understand too, just for context, we moved, we graduated elementary school in Minnesota and then we moved to Atlanta. So they were in, you know, a brand new school system in middle school as girls. and my Christie was really, really, really powerful in saying, you don't understand what's about to happen.

because you'd never been through it. And here's what I, here's some things you need to be thinking about you need to do. And that's when I started to kind of formulate my plan around, Hey, my job as a male is to drive self -confidence, positive body image, and reinforce their ability to take risks when they want. Right. So I probably had, I would think about those things weekly, Luke.

Michael Williams (01:00:40.974)
And make sure that I made a point with both of them at some time in the course of a five business day, or if I wasn't home over the weekend, but make a purposeful plan and impact those three things. And ultimately, like you said, like we talked about why your why it's so important to have your why your why is you gotta be the voice that's there when you're not there. That's really cool. That's a really, that's a really powerful, so that could be an inspiration for dads.

Yes, you're going to be the voice, right? What is that voice going to say? Yeah. What do you want them to hear when they're in that spot? You can put whatever spot you want on it. But was there a similar list of priorities that you aligned with for your wife's role with them in terms of these are the things that you as a woman who's been through it as a female that

Did she have the three things? And I'm just kind of curious, could she tell us that those were your three things, here's my three things? Yeah, because she told me those are my three things. Yeah. Perfect. Don't forget who is in charge here, Mike. Exactly. I don't know that, I think she coached me really well on here's,

Here's the things that you need to be thinking about, especially when it comes to girls. And here's the things that I'm going to be thinking about. And her things were mostly like, no, emotional support, right? Doing the grunt work, right? Like, mom, I left my homework at home, running at the school. Like, that's not. But, you know, kind of doing the detailed, motherly, emotional connection.

things that the girls needed was basically, my God. Never. I'm sorry. I'm screwing up your podcast. She's texting me her things right now. Cause she can hear me. She's behind camera. She's not even in this room. So I turned my phone off. We just got a sneak peek into how this house works. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I think, you know, she was

Michael Williams (01:03:05.582)
deeply involved on the day to day. Like we talked about, I traveled a ton. she was absolutely their emotional. Right. Outlet and, and very tactical. because, you know, I had to have a plan cause I wasn't here all the time. Like she was. I think, you know, the last thing we always like to end with is just, and you kind of talked about this in different parts, but if you just had one piece of advice for parents out there as a dad,

Could be about social media. It could just be about your experience as a dad to these two incredible, incredible daughters. What is that piece of advice? You know, Luke, I'm a man of few words when given the opportunity. And I would, I would kind of say, you can do it. You were built for this. Trust your gut and take the first step. You can always make an adjustment. You don't have to have a perfect plan. Just go out and execute and do your best.

and make changes as you see fit. Awesome.

I just want to say thank you, Kevin. You know, I think it's, it's incredible to see somebody like you, the thoughtfulness and the intention. It's incredible to hear how much you love your daughters have put into them. How much you love your wife to hear and witness your partnership. And it's really awesome to hear you talk about how proud you are. yeah. For sure. You know, it's, right. It's really incredible. And

And for members of the audience, you know, I got to know Kevin in a professional context and knowing what he put in puts into the, you know, the professional side. it's no surprise that this is how you take your role as a, as a father and as a husband. So I just want to say thank you for jumping on the podcast today. This is incredible. This is going to be valuable to, to many, many people. It's been, you know,

Michael Williams (01:05:03.246)
I don't know if we've achieved our goal of reducing anxiety, but I at least have some confidence and I'm going to trust my intuition as we navigate these waters. But Kevin, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This has been awesome. I really appreciate it. Listen, if I can do it, anybody can do it. Just believe in themselves. Awesome. Thank you, my man. Thanks everyone who tuned into this episode with Kevin.

And thank you, Kevin, for all the wisdom and learnings you shared. It's really incredible to hear how you partnered so closely with your wife, the intentionality of the plan you two put together, how you navigated the wave that is and was your daughter's social media experience on her path to 500 ,000 TikTok followers, and ultimately how successful you've been parenting two incredible, confident, and successful daughters. One thing that I will 100 % take from this episode

is the idea that we as parents, we are the voices in our children's head. The question we get to ask ourselves is what does that voice say when we're not there? I hope you all enjoyed this conversation as much as we did. And as a reminder, DadPod is for anyone who is 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's interested in supporting somebody who is a dad. With that, thank you.

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.