Diversity Dad podcast - Helping dads to “buck conventionally” and celebrate doing fatherhood differently.

Kellen Coleman will share with us the amazing knowledge and wisdom he has been collecting through his fatherhood journey. Father of two little girls and owner of a PR and consulting firm and the publishing house known as Formenky Publishing, author of the LONDON & SYDNEY EXPLORE THE WORLD: TEXAS children’s book and co-author of other books, and being the primary caregiver to his kids Kellen will show us in a very practical way how to juggle so many hats and still do a great job.   “Being the primary caregiver because my wife works 80 to 100 hours a week like every other resident in this country, and not paid for that work, minimum wage payments and that’s just part of being a resident. Is being a primary caregiver, being an entrepreneur, running a PR and consulting firm and now starting the publishing company and it is all a team effort, couldn’t do it by myself. It is being able to wear multiple hats whether it is in 10 minutes, an hour or a day. You go from entrepreneur to dad, you go from being the disciplinarian to being the person who has to listen, I have two girls so I always have to listen, you know, that is a skill that I’ve had to learn. Having to be diverse and being able to multitask and also plan those trips to the museum, to the waterpark, while getting my work done, making sure that payroll is done, my whole day is diverse and I am never, never upset about it because this is what I chose and I love doing it every day.” He will share his view on the current state of the children’s book market and on the struggles many people go through every day as not only single parents but also as people that didn’t listen to the wise words of our elders.    “So a lot of problems we have with dads is that people aren’t listening to the wisdom that the old people told them. Find a good mate, make sure you are equally owed and you guys are on the same accord and then go through the steps. But when people wanna have one night stands and say “oh, I can raise a kid by myself” and “I don’t need a woman” or “I don’t need the man” there is always problems, there is more problems.” Let’s all take a moment to appreciate and learn as much as we can from Kellen on today’s interview as we did preparing today’s show for you. We do hope you enjoy it and learn as much as we did from it. “My proudest moment is the everyday stuff, it’s the everyday of seeing good grades coming into the house, even though the grades won’t get you into college at this point. It is also seeing that messes into the shoes are sorted out before the TV is even thought of being turned on. Those are my proudest moments because it lets me know that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing.”     OTHER QUOTES: “Four years prior to that I had already created a page of a book idea that I wanted, but it wasn’t until, you know, every great thing comes out of a tragedy, so my mother was really sick and she ended up passing and I wanted to document my kids travel and someone that I showed it to said “You know what, I don’t think there is another book out there with two black girl travelling, in everyday real travel.”, you know, you always have some kind of fantasy rabbit doing something, but barbies go to the beach, and so do we. So I said “you know what? We are going to make a book, we are going to create a publishing house and we travelled to over 22 cities in less than about two months and I had a book. The hardest part was finding the illustrator and then being able to provide and pay for it, because it cost a lot of money to do. Being a dad, it’s all part of it, I see this as a legacy that my kids will keep going if they so wish to. My 7 years old London, has already created her first book of a puzzle book. It is about 30, 40 pages of a puzzle book and it is going to be kind of an additional read for our first book out. So it will be our second book on for Fomenky publishing and I am just excited to push this out because there are a lot of black books out there, there is a lot of books of color that you can find, but what I find is a lot of them have to do with civil rights, a lot of them aren’t really kid friendly and it is because adults are writing them with an adult mind. My wife and I, she co-wrote this book with me, we wrote it with the children’s mind, we kept it real simple and real true based on our daughter’s experiences.    “As a black man there is that propaganda that we are not there for our kids, but that is propaganda, I am a publicist, I am a consultant, I understand propaganda, Orson Wells to the beginning but the propaganda and the stereotypes are wrong and I know new York times has done stories on it, CNN has done stories that show that black men are actually more involved in their children’s lives than any other and I think that is because so many of us saw or had it happen to us where there was no father around and we said “we are not going to be that dad”.” “For me it is being able to see that the methods that I am using to raise them are working and what I mean by that is I take a very hands on approach. I am not, I don’t want to say sensitive, but I am being very direct with my kids to the point where I am letting them know “you can get this for yourself.”, there is no reason for me to pour cereal for a 7 years old. A 7 years old have responsibilities in my house and I like that on a Saturday when I do get to sleep in.” “For the dads that are out there saying “well, but I never could open a business” or this and that, well, I didn’t wake up with the business, I didn’t wake up with any support for a business ever in my life. None of the closest people gave me the financial or emotional support that you would think and I have been through what a lot of the dads have gone through. And we could go through a list of lines but I would say “been there, done that” and some of that is so personal it would take a whole other show to really explain that “been there, done that”. Almost lost everything because of the bad decisions that I made, some because the market was terrible and whatnot and there were no jobs and for every that you get in you would have to put in 100 applications, I have a master’s degree saying that and I know I am smart and great at what I do.” “For dads who are really struggling, there is a way out. You just need to link up with some positive people because for every negative thing that you hear about yourself, whether that is your woman telling you that or whether that is yourself telling you that, or your mother, you need to hear about seven positive things to really bounce back.” “The best advice that I got before becoming a father at a father’s class that I took voluntarily at one of the hospital which everyone has access to in this country Thank God is “you know as a man what your boiling point is and you will get to that point at some point with your kids. And when you get to that point walk away.”         LINKS: FACEBOOK @kellenkash https://www.facebook.com/KELLENCACHE https://www.facebook.com/KELLENKASH/ INSTAGRAM @kellenkash https://www.instagram.com/kellenkash/ London & Sydney Explore the World: Texas Adventure http://londonandsydney.com/       “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”  

Today we will learn a lot from Charles Jackson’s history. Learning how to put family first and how to deal with divorce and the distance from his kids. A big cautionary tale that will certainly make better fathers out of all of us diversity dads.  “I am involved in their social media that my kids are on, the Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. I see those as the tools for me to keep a constant connection. It was a blended parenting watching because I wasn’t there every day, I’m not there to hear the small conversations but to really monitor what my children are posting, what are their thoughts, what are they responding to that may be an influence up there and try to understand that but to also pick up the habits of using these tools. I snapchat the goofy faces to my kids just to kind of keep that connection with them. It is constant communication.” From using social media to shorten the distance from our children to the importance of keeping in touch and keeping constant contact when we dads are far away, Charles will share some of his struggles and lessons learned from living far away from his children.  “For me is when I hear them overcome the objectives they have, I look at my youngest and right now the focus for her has been school. We will talk about her classes and she will talk about how hard her classes are but she will say “you know dad, I got flash cards” or “I put this app on my phone to overcome Spanish” or “Science is really difficult, but I am looking at some youtube videos to help me understand things”. I think that is the proudest moment because I feel like that is what we are here to do, we teach our kids how to deal with life as it comes. For her to have that smartness to say “I am going to go look at other resources” that is my chemistry, so I feel like that is my child right there.” We have had other divorced dads on our show and the message is still the same, a message that is still very powerful to any dad out there, make sure that the environment when things get bad don’t impact the kids in a negative way. Charles Jackson will reinforce that message from his very own perspective. “It was very challenging, divorces can be complicated. One of the things that we didn’t want to do was make sure that the kids were mixed into those complications. Being able to get up there and see them on a regular basis and going through some of the things at the time, financially it wasn’t permissible at times. A trip up there, gas, hotel, doing things with the kids because I wasn’t going go up there and just have them sit in a hotel room with me all day but to do things with them it took money that sometimes I didn’t have. It was difficult. It was difficult at the beginning to try to see my children on a regular basis as much as I wanted to.” We hope that Charles Jackson’s history teaches you as much or even more than it taught us. And inspires us to go to the next level and become better dads, and parents, tomorrow than we were yesterday.   OTHER QUOTES:  “I used to get those questions at the beginning. Probably the first couple of years after the divorce, you know “why am I away”. The situation was that my wife moved away and then it would be the question “why didn’t you follow” or I would get the comment from other men, black, white, other cultures, who would make comments about “I would always be by my children”, I mean, it was a hard pill for me to swallow at the time but I knew the environment that it would create, being as close as I was to my ex at the time and I didn’t want my children to be part of that environment. There was still a lot of negative feelings and negative impulses from the divorce that I didn’t want my children to be victim to. So I felt that the distance was something that was best suited and I would just have to put in a lot of the extra work to try and keep that connection with my kids.” “Probably the biggest one is just not putting work first for a lot of years in my daughters young age and during my first marriage, I put work first a lot because I felt that career an money was the foundation of stabilizing our family and making sure that the roof was over our heads and the lights were on and things of that nature. I took some real hard knocks in life to understand that it was more about me first. I had to learn to really balance that out. To make sure that the kids were taken care of first. I didn’t see that growing up. I didn’t have a family environment where I see God, Family, and Career in the household. So I didn’t know what that looked like. I missed a lot of opportunities with the kids, I was there for some key moments, the first bike ride, letting them go, watch them take those pedals, there is a lot of memories I cherish, but there was a lot of opportunities that I recognise I missed because I stayed in work late, or because I took shifts I didn’t need to take.” “I think you have to create a discipline. For me it was a discipline. I didn’t have the kind of job where I physically brought work home. I didn’t have to log into a computer when I got home and do extra work that way. That was definitely some saving grace, but I carried enough of a responsibility as a store manager to bring it mentally home and think about things that I needed to do tomorrow most of the night. So it was really messing me up. It was messing my whole family dynamics up. My children would have homework, I am helping them but they are not getting my full attention and I am not understanding where I am not being as helpful where I am so the minute the transition happens everything felt more in line. I was better at math and helping them with the math homework, my wife at the time, she was better at the grammar piece. I think when you let work be where it is at, being at home 100%, I mean 100%, can’t be 90%, can’t be 80%. It is very magical and you become a different kind of man, you become a better father at home.”       LINKS: FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/charles.m.jacksoniii INSTAGRAM @3cjackson https://www.instagram.com/3cjackson/     “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”  

We hope you get inspired to let it loose and have some fun after today’s episode with Robert Douglas. We hope you get inspired to slowly stop taking everything so seriously and focus on the present, focus on the good you have now, focus on being a fun parent and having fun. This is what Mr. Douglas will teach us on his interview today.    “Don’t take everything so seriously, that one piece of advice I would give because you will stress yourself out, being a parent is a big deal anyway, bringing a life into the world, being responsible for a life, it is a massive deal, but don’t think of that in that context because it will stress you out and you will not enjoy and not cherish the moments with your children. So don’t take everything so seriously is probably one of the best pieces of advice I could give.” His story and words are certain to bring out the fun inside ourselves once again and let it shine. Let it shine through the way we love our children and through the way we love our families. Robert will teach us how to ground ourselves on the present and enjoy the moments and the little things once again.    “We have talked about recognizing stages, recognize stages of your children and enjoy what they do when they do it. Don’t expect them to be someone else, don’t wish their life away by thinking “I wish they could hurry up and walk” or “I wish they could grow up and move out” or whatever it might be, don’t wish that time away, cherish it, express your love because that is all that they will see.” Most importantly the constant reminder we keep getting on this show to be there and be present. To spend the time to not only raise but also grow with our children. We hope that today’s episode change yours, your children’s and your family life for the better just as it did with us despite all of the obstacles and challenges that will keep showing up on every moment but that will cat as reminders that it was worth it.  OTHER QUOTES: “When we had our son, 4 years ago, we brought him into a home which was filled of laughter and filled of fun. We made sure that we took that time with him, that we were always laughing around him, that he saw that life isn’t so serious. (…) We make sure my son is laughing all the time, we make sure that he is having fun because you mentioned earlier that they pick up on everything that you do so if they see us having fun, if they see us laughing, if they see us not putting barriers in the way all the time then that is how they are kind of grow up.” “I think the most exciting thing for me is living life through their eyes. Seeing that amazement at things, the simple things that now I take for granted. Just recently we went to a safari park and we saw animals and to me animals are animals, I have seen them many times but to him, to see his amazement when he saw the lions or when he saw all the penguins, or when he got to hold a snake. Seeing his amazement, his wide eyes and his big smile, that is what is most exciting for me.” “It goes so quickly, especially, I found, in the first few years of their life, they go from crying and sleeping to walking and talking in what feels like days. It is a few years but they go so quickly and you forget those times and like you say, you need to stop him and cherish those times.”  “The biggest obstacle that I have is actually dealing with the various stages of childhood and dealing with my son in the situation that he is in or the stage that he is going through because what went from an always cute little toddler and baby has grown into a 4 years old boy with his own, his own will, his strong will pushing boundaries.”  “Quite often there was a story behind the pictures and over time I used to forget what went behind the picture and it used to just become a picture. So I would have thousands of pictures on my iPhone and I got to the stage where my iPhone kept telling me that there was not enough storage on my phone so I had to delete some pictures.”   LINKS: http://thisfatherlife.com/ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/this_father_life/ @this_father_life     “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”  

Billy Yalowitz will share some of his great insight and vision on fatherhood. Became a father at 55 years old Billy leads workshops on parenting and fatherhood, helping parents from all around to network and connect, helping break the age old culture that fathers and men in general have no feelings or deep connections especially with other men and fathers. “I love introducing Zevi to the world. I love being with her. She discovers it on her own and I come with her. I love the parts and the ideas that I can show to her. But it is the relationship and the unfolding of the relationship. I like to think of Zevi as my contemporary.” From his inspiring and beautiful relationship with his daughter we learn once again that fatherhood is much more than just providing and protecting. It is also exposing and guiding, it is an active role in the family and in the raising of the children.   “Find another father and get really close to him. Find another father, or two or three other fathers that you can create regular play dates with and that you can turn to for support, that you can listen to each other about what is going well and what is hard about fathering and develop your network of other fathers to be close to.” He made his mission to teach parents through his workshops that networking and connecting with other parents is a key point in learning and growing as people and parents. He takes to heart the old saying that it takes a village to raise a child and takes it to another level from all of his own experience with his fathering project. It is amazing to listen how this project came together and the great things they have achieved so far. “It is like a daily practice that is a kind of a recovery practice. Any parent knows it is physically taxing work. Whether you are in the paid labor force or not. And for stay at home parents, stay at home moms and stay at home dads that is very physically and emotionally and intellectually challenging work. So how do we recover? How do we do that?” Tighten your seat belts and prepare for an amazing interview that will take your fathering skills to a whole new level and change yours and your family life for the better.     OTHER QUOTES: “There is this daily struggle at the society that does not recognize parenting as such an important job. I see it as a job. Some of the women who ave been my mentors for decades have for a long time said that the work of giving care, parenting, teaching, the maintenance of the home, domestic work are all kinds of labor that are completely undervalued in the society.” “It is like a daily practice that is a kind of a recovery practice. Any parent knows it is physically taxing work. Whether you are in the paid labor force or not. And for stay at home parents, stay at home moms and stay at home dads that is very physically and emotionally and intellectually challenging work. So how do we recover? How do we do that?”  “If you are on a heterosexual relationship particularly, notice the effect of the difficulty of parenting on you and your co parent, you and your female partner. Because I have noticed for me for sure and around the dads that I am close to that with the challenges of parenting the relationship with our female partners takes a really hard hit and we are more apt to act out in ways towards them in the moments of stress and challenge and fear than we might have been before.” “For a while I didn’t know what to do as an artist. I really wanted to keep Zevi, that is my daughter, central in my life and I was aware that work and specially the kind of work I do which is very encompassing and could take me away for periods of time, I wanted to change that, I wanted to keep my family and my daughter really central.” “Virtually all men I know in this society and other societies that I am familiar with that we are systematically separated from our children and that process of our socialization as males I think begins at birth, in the uterus. We get treated differently. I think males get dehumanized in how we grow up as boys. We are kept from our own feelings, we are kept from really close affectionate contact with other boys and with everybody.” “For me part of the work of fathering, apart of the opportunity there is I need to keep up with myself and I need to draw in further support from other adults whether they are parents, whether they are female or male. I have to challenge my own isolation every step of the way because when I am in close contact in good relationships where I can really talk and feel what I need to feel and have people listen to me and I listen to them then I show up in much better shape for Zevi.”     LINKS: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/billy.yalowitz   “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”  

Jeffrey Cheatham, single father and kids books author will share some of the life lessons about fatherhood he has learned the hard way and has been sharing through his books on today’s episode of the Diversity Dad Podcast. From finding his passion and calling on authoring books for children to raising his young girl the best he can we will go through some of the challenges and beautiful moments that Jeffrey has to share with us today. “My daughter teaches me things. As a parent we all go through things where we get super upset with our kid because they keep forgetting to twist on a cap of a drink in the refrigerator and it keeps spilling over, and then we learn a lesson of patience. Or the lessons of comunication. The lessons of understanding, because this is a child that we have to guide in the world.” From many things we will be reminded that fatherhood is something that we learn and not something that we should be good at straight from the start. Being humble and patient is a big part of that big learning process. “You got to make sure that your foundation is strong enough so that way you can help someone else. This kinda goes in anything where you can’t help people if you can’t help yourself. It doesn’t do any good for your child if you are not okay but you are trying to make sure that your child is okay. It means digging a bigger hole than the one you started with.” Jeffrey will also teach us a lot from his humility. About being humble enough to admit our flaws and mistakes, learn from them and move on. Something we need to be reminded of sometimes on an hourly basis. “It is all about growing. And also from my perspective living life and making mistakes, the journey in that is fun because you get to learn something new, and I really enjoy learning new things all the time.” Most important of all, Jeffrey will teach us to have fun on this long and difficult journey that fatherhood is. He will inspire us with his joy for challenging himself and for learning new things whenever possible and taking the best of it. “Make fatherhood fun.” We hope that you get out of this episode feeling the passion and strengh towards the betterment of yourself and  achievement of your goals, inspired by Jeffrey’s journey just as we did. OTHER QUOTES: “What makes me a diversity dad is the fact that I am not too proud to admit my mistakes as far as when it comes to raising my kid. Because my whole purpose in life right now is to make sure that my daughter becomes the best person that she can be.” “I’m not afraid to admit my flaws, but I am willing to give 100% to life in order to develop something greater for my kid to grow up in. And also, I am not afraid to work with others if the common objective is to create a better way of living for our kids and our kids kids, if that makes any sense.” “The thing that stands out to me the most is the fact that my daughter always asks questions about everything. And that makes me proud because that means she wants to learn. And that does my heart good.” “She will ask me what’s the next story is going to be about or who is going to be the next character of the story and then I explain it to her in a way and stuff like that. It just depends on what she is curious about. She will ask me because I always tell her always ask questions, if you don’t know, ask.”   LINKS: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jlcheatham2/ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jay_elcheatham2/     “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”

Jeremy Maynard will share all the knowledge he have been gathering from his personal journey. He will inspire and teach us on how to be better man and better father through the core values of his enterprise called Furthering Fathering. “Instead of complaining about it which is looking at the common and plain, we decided to focus on what we could do to build our fathers. Initially we had three core principles which are honor, accountability and training but God has a strange way of making things make sense and as we added encouragement and reconciliation he exploded his word to us, it formed the word heart.” He has such an amazing story. As if being father of four young adults was not enough he has also experienced the big transition in and out of a divorce and the amazing experience of finding a life partner again. We learned a lot from his experiences on today’s episodes and we hope you do as much or even more.  “They may not be listening now, but you train them in the way they should go so when they are old, when they are adults, when they are older, they will not depart from it. The first learning style of a child is observation.” We are going to talk about the core values of Furthering Fatherhood which are honor, encouragement, accountability, reconciliation and training and how we can use those core values together with all the people we have around us, from spouse to family members, friends and, although on a smaller scale, people we pass by on our everyday lives. “(…) understand that it is okay to be whom you are and how you are designed and perfect how you are designed.” We hope everyone absorbs at least a bit of the powerful message Jeremy shared with us today. And if you do come back for more!   OTHER QUOTES: “You have to honor others. Especially if you see other dads doing well, you have to encourage others to do the right things, the right way, for the right reasons. And you have to be accountable yourself. On the flip end, you have to have an ear for those who honor you.” “To operate in the best possibility for your child is to provide both aspects, the male and the female, the father and the wife, so that they get a balanced view of how life is. The men tend to think long term, woman are more detailed oriented. Those are generalizations, but true generalizations” “(…) understand that it is okay to be whom you are and how you are designed and perfect how you are designed.” “If you reduce a man to a wallet, he only becomes as valuable as what is in it. And fatherhood is so much more. Actually the best provision you can provide to your child is presence. Your presence and your wisdom.” “You get a picture of what agape love is. Unconditional love. Your child looks at you and loves you just because you are their daddy. They don’t have add-ons, or I want this I mean, they look at you and love you just because you are their daddy.” “We like to deal with symptoms, we like to march, and we like to do all sort of things when we see something go wrong. But we never get to the root of issues. The root of many of the core issues in society is fatherhood.”   LINKS: Furthering Fathering Website http://www.furtheringfathering.org/ Facebook - @TheFurtheringFatheringCorporation https://www.facebook.com/TheFurtheringFatheringCorporation Twitter – @FurtherFatherCo https://twitter.com/FurtherFatherCo Instagram - @FurtherFatherCo https://www.instagram.com/furtherfatherco/     “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”  

Trevor Alexander – Diversity Dad show notes Today’s episode is all about your hobbies and balancing your life around your partner and your kids. Trevor Alexander is our guest and he will share his experiences being a dad, a gamer and a husband and how he and his friends came up with the podcast New Dad Gaming. “I was always really dedicated to work and always on the startup life. Which classically you can see as 80 hours weeks. Just complete dedication to the craft and the work and trying to build something new and great. With fatherhood what that represented was a need to shift, you cannot have those types of hours and then reasonably be a good father. You have to commit time as you well know, your son or daughter becomes the most important thing in your life.” Trevor is a great example of “work hard, play harder” as we will learn from all of the experiences he shares on this interview. Through the course of the conversation we will learn how he slowly started to realize that he needed to find a way of balancing all of his responsibilities and passions as he was getting ready to be a dad and it is amazing to see how he makes that balance happen in his life. “I think it goes a long way to support and focus on the partner as much as it does on the child.” And he does not do it alone, one of the main aspects of his approach to this balance in life is the way he builds this beautiful partnership with his wife where they are constantly switching roles and enabling each other to dedicate time to all of their passions, the biggest one being parents to their son, which in turn makes them not only better people but also better parents.  “It is like who are you as a human or as a father if your entire impetus is just that very narrative (being a dad) as opposed to having some likes, having some interests, like having hobbies, having opinions and thoughts beyond just fatherhood. So having these tiny moments, or these hobbies or these things that you can participate in kind of draws you out as a person I ultimately felt. As long as your priorities are set properly, you are never impacting proper development or the responsibilities you have, there should absolutely be some time where you can express yourself into the hobbies or the interests that you have.” Trevor is the living testimony that balance is a reachable goal. If everyone works together a strong family, with strong parents and strong kids and strong relationships can be created. But it is not all roses, certainly there are hardships and troubles that will come from time to time, and time and time again we have heard about being patient on the Diversity Dad Podcast and Trevor makes the message even stronger through his experiences.     “My wife, about six months in with our son had suffered very severe postpartum depression, which is hard to describe just how horrific kind of disease that is. (…) That was really just a matter of stepping up, being patient, getting the help that we needed, which is a lot of honesty about it. It certainly was a really dark time to go through but I don’t that I would ever be able to express how incredibly strong my wife was to be able to weather it as she did and to the strength that it would take for her to reach out and for us to find the help that we needed.” Finally we hope that you come out of this interview inspired to pursue your passions and help your partner in the same journey. Inspired to create a strong family that can overcome any barriers and issues that can and will come as a unit that work together for each other.     OTHER QUOTES:  “I am very fortunate my lovely wife is from Colombia and that has become a really important part for us. We really want my son to know his Colombian heritage, that half of his life. So we are teaching him Spanish, we had a number of trips to Colombia to make sure that he soaks up as much of the culture as possible. Just insuring that his upbringing isn’t just a product of exactly where he is at but really a representation of everything around him and where both parents are coming from. So you can speak to both sides.” If I had to break it down I would probably say (what has me the most excited about being a dad) getting to know my son. I am very sure you must have experienced it yourself where as they start to grow their personalities start s to bud. I think in many ways a lot of the way he will be will be result of how we raise him of course, but so much of it does seem to be his makeup, like he is himself, and he is really just becoming himself. And to watch that, to see who he is growing to be, to see how he reacts, to see his personality, his likes, dislikes, like “is he going to be a dancer?”, “is he going to be a basketball player?”. How he approaches life, how he interacts and talk, it is incredibly exciting to see where he is going to go.” “Right now his imagination is starting to take hold. And you are seeing where he is just taking two or three random toys or random objects and interacting. Like playing, driving story lines between these things. You can’t quite get into his head but you can see the gears starting to turn, starting to have this imagination. And that has been just mind boggling.” “If anything that is really the very impetus of the show (New Dad Gaming Podcast), it is the constant struggle of that desire to partake in this hobby that you have always enjoyed so much and the rigors and the requirements of fatherhood.” “What has brought me a lot of relief in many ways has been what I call the easy dedication. The son absolutely takes priority over anything. I almost call a blessing to say I have never been torn where it like “oh, I have to hang out with my son instead of playing games.” I feel very lucky that that has never really been the impulse.” “It is all about finding that escapism. What takes your mind away from the pressures of life or just other things going on in your life. And I think Trevor nailed it right there, it is having that appreciation for both (being a dad and gaming).”   LINKS: New Dad Gaming Website http://newdadgaming.com/ Twitter – @NewDadGaming https://twitter.com/newdadgaming     “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”  

Sheldon Barrocks – Diversity Dad show notes Today we will learn from Sheldon Barrocks, a father that talks about imperfect, but intentional fatherhood. Emphasis on intentional specially when besides working full time, kickstarting his own business and writing for his own The Amateur Dad blog he raises his family with four kids. Coming from an early age Sheldon had the dream of raising a family and we can certainly tell that from the way he writes and speaks and from the amazing nuggets of wisdom we get from him in today’s episode. Having three kids at the time and from his dream to be a writer The Amateur Dad blog was created as a way of inspiring other men, specially black men, showing that they can also be great fathers and raise great families.   “It was intriguing for me to talk about being a young black father that loves being a dad and that loves spending time with his kids and talking about the challenges of having different kids.” Sheldon shares a bit of his experience juggling all the responsibilities and worries that come from work and family together with having his own blog. We will learn how he manages to find the time and energy to not only keep everything together but also help other young people around him to get motivated and excited not only about their own lives but also about the fact that there are people around them that truly cares about them. “I stayed up late and I just have a passion for writing and that is what I did. I stayed up late, sometimes 2 am, putting on a blog post for the next day. I enjoyed it so much that it was easy for me to stay up in the wee hours of the morning to get it done.” “I think it is important for us father and even us that are just older, more mature, men to really take time and really show these younger people that we do care about them. We care about where they are going to be, we care about where they are at. It is not just a blood thing, it is a human thing, and I think that when they see more of that they are going to want to be that. I know when I was growing up, when I saw leaders at my church and of course my ultimate leader, my dad, I wanted to be that. I wanted to be a father like my father. I wanted to be like these leaders I saw growing up when I was going on mission trips and whatnot. So when you see leaders care about you it makes you want to be like them.” If we can take one huge lesson from the Diversity Dad Podcast is that it is very important to spend time and quality time with our children. And today Sheldon will share some very nice tips and tricks to keep at it, from being spontaneous and intentional with a few unconventional little gifts (we are talking about food!) at unconventional situations to simply smiling when at home even though things might not be so happy in other areas of the family, personal and professional life. “Do surprise them. I was coming late home and I ordered a pizza ahead of time and I paid for it online and I sent it to my family and they were so happy when I got home, that was the greatest for me to send food and not be home and they had pizza. Stuff like that makes a huge difference.” “Always let your kids see you smile. Always be that joyful person within the household that brings joy, brings happiness despite what you are going through. It is not always easy but I think that for our kids’ sake it is good for them. They feel safety in that. When kids see their dads smiling, when kids see their dad willing to get on the floor and roll on the floor with them, to get silly with them, to listen to the things they are working on, it is a big deal for dads to disconnect from their interests, our responsibilities and just for a moment spend time with them. To let them know that you are there any time they need.” We hope you finish this episode as inspired as we were, ready to catch all the opportunities to be intentional and surprising in all the little (and the big ones too) things related to the family life. Maybe not only your own family but also the other families around you.   OTHER QUOTES:  “More than anything else, seeing my father raise me and my other three siblings, I wanted to be a father, a husband, and I couldn’t wait to do that. I got made fun of at school for it. When people asked me what I wanted to do and I were “Yeah, I want to write and stuff, but I want to be a father, I want to get married, have kids, grow a family.” “It was always important to me to be a father, to be a strong black father role model for my own kids and also for other young men that want to have families and let them know that despite what they have been through and despite what they have seen, there are many black fathers like myself that are passionate about being a father.” “Whenever you come across kids it is important to show them that love, that motivation. We were at a party and my niece was talking to me about things she wanted to do. She has a great father, she has an awesome father, my brother in law is an awesome father and she has an awesome mother but it takes a village and with me raising my own kids and looking at her I just encouraged her, I said “go for your goals, if you want to do this, you know, you want to be a doctor, go do it, you want to be a lawyer, go ahead and do it. Don’t let anyone stop you.”” “It’s all about just having young people in your life that look like you. And the joy of you knowing that as we get older we are going to have these kids get older and when we are on an old age we are going to have these people on our life that we can love that will love us back and that will be parents themselves.” “My parents have four kids and they have 11 grand kids. They are so happy. They have their simple house and their simple lives but when they have this big family around them they can be happier. To me, I am excited about what the future holds.” “I think the biggest thing is finding that unique time to really get them one on one and really hear their heart. I try my best to do, I am not the best at it but I try to take my daughter for breakfast and just talk to her. I try to take my son on walks Saturday morning and just hear his heart, it gives me a chance to kinda of impart some wisdom into him. My 4 years old, I have taken him for breakfast too one time and just let him know that in the midst of a big family I still love him and he is still special. He might get lost in the mix with so many people in the house.” “That is what I think is the biggest challenge. Just finding authentic, unique time to really get deep with your kids. I think it is very important. Because I think it is better to talk and address some things now before it gets too late. Because you don’t want to turn around and find out when they have become 14, 15, 16 years old and they are getting their information from their friends or from other people and making decisions based on that. Instead of hearing your voice which they remember from when they were 8,9, 10 years old.” “Our jobs as parents is to prepare our kids for the future and at some point we have to let them go and let them be, but for now at this age where my kids are, it is important that me and my wife take time and we really have those one on one’s.” “I have to really get into their world. My son is doing all sorts of things, he is a nick nack kind of guy. He is learning how to put things together, how chemical reactions work, he is breaking down these big electronical parts and putting them back together, so I got to get into his world and he is telling me things “men I didn’t even know this” it is kind of crazy.”   LINKS: AMATEUR DAD BLOG http://theamateurdad.com/ TWITTER – Sheldon Barrocks@theamateurdad https://twitter.com/theamateurdad INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/sheldonbarrocks/     “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”  

Jason Mackenzie – Diversity Dad show notes Today we will have the chance to share a bit of the incredible life story of Jason MacKenzie, father of two daughters, husband, writer, life coach and the guy behind thebookofopen.com. “In my first marriage my wife, and the biological mother of our children, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder which is a mental illness that causes pretty radical and dangerous behaviour in deep and oftentimes suicidal depressions and just a very wide ranging spectrum of behaviour and it is all painful and destructive and it is really a horrible thing to witness somebody you love going through or anybody going through.” When we think about struggle and how to overcome it as a family we know we can have on Jason an example, and a good one, on how to deal it. It wasn’t easy for him and it took a great deal of effort and failed attempts but he fought, he learnt and he became a better man, a better father and now he knows how to succeed in life together with his family. “I really didn’t have many tools to cope with the incredible emotional trauma of what was happening to me and I started drinking very heavily and it was because I couldn’t cope with the feelings I was having. So I tried to drown them basically in alcohol.” Besides going through a very bad time with his first wife he also had to deal with his alcohol addiction, which he fought and won through an amazing story that every son, daughter, father and mother should listen to at least once. “It really took me a long time, it took me 4 years after my first wife’s death to stop drinking and it is amazing how that happened. I had promised my daughter, Melody, who was 9 at the time that we were going to have a special day together and I really hyped it up, that it was going to be great and the whole thing. You know when the day rolled around I did what I so often did, I waited for the clock to strike 11 o’clock, I went to the pub, I took her with me, had a few beers there, went to the liqueur store, came home and drank the day away. Did nothing special with her and when my wife came home she talked to her and Melody came up and looked me in the eye and told me she was disappointed.”                 Coming from his own experience and amazing story, a great example of how powerful your relationship with your kids and close family can be, he learnt to overcome the problems and we are sure many of the Diversity Dads out there can also learn and will certainly feel inspired by his story. “I had this incredible moment of clarity and I just knew I was done drinking. And the reason is I allowed myself to be vulnerable enough with myself to take a fearless inventory of myself. And I was able to say for the first time without judgment that “I am 41 years old, I drink every day. I am causing my wife, this incredible woman who has come into our life and helped rebuild our family, I am causing her no end of worrying and concern and now my kids are telling me they are disappointed at me. I want something different.” and that was the first time I was ever able to just say that to myself. The truth, without judgment. And it freed me. It just freed me to create something different.” “It is more than father to daughter or father to son. It is human being to human being. When our kids know that we feel what they feel they will come to us when they feel those emotions too. It is the simplest and the most profound way to form a unbreakable connection with our kids.”                   It is not all bad experiences and overcoming our problems and addictions though. We will see just how much Jason was able to take out from his relationship with his daughters and how many amazing things he has to say.                  We hope you take as much wisdom, knowledge and have such a great time listening to his story and to what he has to say as we did!   OTHER QUOTES: “What we typically do is, we are told whether it is on our personal lives or professional lives too, the path to improvement is through solving problems. In other words, we find what is not working about us and we fix it and then by doing so we automatically get better. The problem is what we focus on grows.” “So, appreciative enquiry is a method of really helping people understand what energizes them and gives them life and what is already working in their lives.” “Let’s say your child comes home from school and they get a specific mark on a test. So they get a 85% on the test. There’s two ways to handle that. One way is to say “Oh, good job. What did you get wrong?”. And then, maybe an approach would be “okay, to not get those questions wrong in the future you should study more.” That’s a pretty standard response. But another approach, and the appreciative enquiry approach would say “let’s understand by asking questions, what worked for you to get an 85% and then how do we do more of that?” so maybe it was “how did I as a parent support you in getting that mark?” and what you might find out is that you didn’t give me chores three days before the test, you created a space for me to thrive, you committed to me that if I ever had a question for you, you would be willing to stop what you were doing and answer. (…) You are taking what is already working and just finding ways to do more of that to perform at a higher level.”  “During that time I had a very narrow definition of what it meant to be a strong man and father. That definition was strength is logic and strength is using the power of my mind and the power of my will to influence events. But I thought emotions were weakness because they are irrational and I just thought weak people let themselves get bogged down or hampered by their emotions.”  “We all experience every human emotion. Whether we choose to admit it or not is another matter. But every single one of us feels anxiety, fear, discomfort, grief when something tragic happens and we also feel joy, passion, gratitude and hope.”  “I am seeing the woman that they are going to become. I can see how they are interacting with the world and I can see how they have such a high level of awareness. Of their place in the world, the power their choices have to create their world and the impact that their thoughts, and words and actions have on other people. I compare it to myself at their age. I was sticking Lego up my nose at eleven years old.” “I was driving her to figure skating and I just pulled the car over and I just said “I don’t really think you probably remember this moment; I am sure you don’t.” And I walked through that, I sort of recounted or relived that moment when she told me she was disappointed at me. I just thank her for having the courage to be honest and telling me how she felt. Because her having the courage to be honest with me gave me the courage to finally be honest with myself.” “After I told her that we had that conversation she looked at me and said “Daddy, you always made me feel really special”. That moment was, I don’t know if magical is the right word. It was just so powerful.” “My biggest obstacle, as far as a specific moment, was sitting them down and telling them that their mother was dead. That was a very very hard thing to do obviously.” “We as parents think we are supposed to know everything. And we don’t know everything and our kids know that we don’t know everything. When we pretend that we know everything our kids think that everything we say is suspect.”     LINKS: THE BOOK OF OPEN WEBSITE http://thebookofopen.com/ Twitter - @TheBookOfOpen https://twitter.com/thebookofopen INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thebookofopen/ RESOURCES: jason (at) thebookofopen (dot) com     “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”  

In this episode we will learn a bit of the story of Steve Roy, a fitness coach specialized in working with dads and helping them find the time and the motivation to change their lives becoming better for themselves, for their family and for their children. He is the single dad of two girls. He is also the founder of the Fit Dad Nation website and community with thousands and thousands of dads from all over the country and from all different backgrounds. We will learn invaluable lessons from Steve as he shares his experience with his divorce and all the changes it brought to his life at a personal and family life with his daughters. It is beautiful to see parenthood from his perspective after the split.    “When I was married, of course I loved my kids, I loved being with them, but it was almost like I took it for granted, my time with them. A lot of times I would be doing mindless stuff not really paying attention to them, not REALLY connecting with them and so, now, literally, every time I see them it just comes to the front of my mind how precious my time, just a limited time, I just have them for a couple days a week, is with them. I am really, really present with them. I am excited because my relationship with them has grown tremendously because I am sitting with them and I am talking with them. I am listening to them and not just sending them off or playing on my phone or doing something else.” It is an amazing thing to see how he was able to come from his own struggle after the separation to change his own life for the better and then create a strong and positive community on Fit Dad Nation to help other parents often on a similar emotional situation dealing with a divorce or just dealing with the big and time consuming adventure raising a kid is.  “The way I ended up starting the website was I fell into a deep, dark place for a long while and really let myself go and just felt terrible, I looked terrible. Well, I was just a physical mess, and I was in the fitness business as well so it wasn’t a great thing. I kinda got a wakeup call one day from a good friend of mine and I started to make some changes and I ended up just running with it.”                 Time and time again here on Diversity Dad we will learn and re-learn on several different perspectives and ways that spending time with our kids is one of the most important things we can do as parents. Steve’s experience not only taught him how to be strong and improve his own health but also how to be a better parent by spending more time, and quality time, with his children and teaching them valuable lessons while at it. A lesson all of us should regard as a very important one. “We do a lot of stuff with them. It could be looked at as “hey, you know, we are out spending money on them.” That type of thing, the typical Disney land dad, but what we are actually doing is giving them experiences that they will remember forever. They are not going to remember sitting at the couch and watching cartoons, they are going to remember going out for that hike or you know, the other day we went out and gave some money to some homeless people and talked to some homeless people. Those are the types of things that they are going to remember. And that is what we are trying to do every single weekend.”                 We will learn not only from his experience with his divorce but also from his experience dealing with a lot of parents on his daily routine and if he says something that he learned from his experience spending time with those parents we should really listen to what he has to say. The second most important lesson he takes for himself and shares with us comes from the way he sees some parents dealing with their children. His answer was amazing and we do hope you can take that and a lot more from today’s episode just like we did. “Talk and actually listen to your children. Talk to them, not at them. I see a lot of parents that cross the border of “I am your father, I am your mother, this is what to do, period” and coming over the top and I understand that philosophy and I have to do it at times but I really think about the respect issue and I don’t think a lot of people think about that. I think the bigger picture is giving them the respect that you in turn expect from them.”   We hope that after listening to this episode you feel inspired to change, either in the way you handle your children or on the way you handle your couch and your free time!   OTHER QUOTES: “I typically don’t exercise on the weekends unless it is with the girls, we will go for bike rides, hikes, fun type of things. But I don’t actually train on the weekends because I don’t want to take my time away from them.” “Regardless of what time you have, it is just finding that time that you spend with your kids and Steve does a really good thing incorporating fitness as well as that quality time.” “I was a very hands on dad. When I was married I did a lot for the girls and as soon as we split I was left with them only on the weekends. I wasn’t with them every day for school and so I had to kind of figure out again the right way to handle all of it. How to talk to them about the divorce, how to handle the emotional side, how to teach them what I needed to teach them on the weekends, they are getting one thing from their mother and something else from me. It has been a challenge to say the least.” “We decided to handle it as a positive thing (the divorce). When I sat down with my in laws and we had the conversation about “Hey, this is what we are doing.” It was terrible. My ex-wife comes from a very catholic family where divorce is not an option. I mean, that is not even on the radar. So when we talked about it, it was not well received and so there was a lot of negativity. We chose to talk the girls as “hey, listen, this is what we are doing, you are going to have two houses now. Daddy is going to be here, you are going to spend the weekends with him and you will stay here with mommy and we are going to be happier separately. So we really tried to make it positive.” “If you are going through a divorce or a separation, make it about the kids. I know this is easier said than done because, not as man but just as human beings, we have those emotional things that we want to make sure that we get across to anyone that we are talking to or have feelings for.” “I work with a lot of single dads and unfortunately a lot of them succumb to anger, hate and the bitterness, and it is so bad for the kids. They will see it, they will hear it. I just refuse to go down that route. It has worked out, I feel like the girls are doing really well because of the way it has been handled.” “Why would you waste your time sitting on your ass watching television drinking beers when you haven’t seen your kids. And they don’t think about it. A lot of married dads, obviously not all of them, don’t even think about it. “Oh, you know, the kids are fine, they are right here, I see them enough.”. But what is going to happen if that is taken away and you can’t see them.” “I do think that personal time is very important, regardless of who you are you need your down time, you need to unwind, unplug. And a lot of guys do that through drinking beer and watching the game. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that but I am saying is when you already barely seeing your kids as it is, I just can’t understand why you would want to go off hunting with your buddies or spend all day on a weekend when this is a perfect opportunity to connect with your kids.” “I just really wanted her to feel better and have more confidence, she just was looking like she was miserable out there, the other kids were running circles around her and I felt bad but she wanted to get better but didn’t know how. We went to the very first game and she ended up scoring the very first goal of the first game. It brought tears to my eyes. I felt so good for her.” “They need to be kids, they don’t need to be involved in that stuff and they don’t need to hear anything bad about their mother regardless of how I feel about her. That is not something that my father believed in. He was not happy with my mother and let me know all about it. That created some problems. I didn’t like my mother for a long long time until I was probably in my thirties I was still pissed at her. Until I finally realized that it wasn’t her. That is what I am trying to avoid.”   LINKS: FIT DAD NATION WEBSITE http://www.fitdadnation.com/ Twitter – Steve Roy@TheFitDadNation https://twitter.com/TheFitDadNation INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thefitdadnation/     “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”  

“Welcome to Diversity Dad where we highlight the unique stories of Dads and embrace their daily struggle in becoming a great father” Today we will learn a bit more about Eric Alper’s journey as a public relations guy working in the music industry while raising his daughter Hannah which is a very active environmental blogger and speaker together with his wife. “I think because it never bothered me (being hearing impaired and wearing hearing aids while working on the music industry) or it didn’t change how I saw things or how I heard things or how I acted around people I know that has affected Hannah, because her being small in size. Me working in the music industry is proof that you really can do anything if you wanted to and if you set your mind to it and if you have a goal.” We will get inspired by the amazing way he inspired his daughter to be brave and face her fears through his own experience. Teaching by example and not by a rulebook or his own words. “I like to say that it is the environment around you that mold what your child is. And I firmly believe that more and more. The power and influence that parents have over their kids.”                 He will also share his very deep view on how the environment we as parents and family create around our children will have a very big impact on what they will come to be in the future. Something we should always have present and always be careful about. Specially because that is not the first time our Diversity Dads have mentioned it during the show. “Work is work and work can be fun and work is business and work is really, really stressful, we are all just trying to make it, survive and be a breadwinner or be that protector, but at the end of the day the family, no matter how big or how small it is, is still one of the biggest, if not the biggest influence that they will ever have in your kids life. How you treat strangers, how you talk to the waiter at the restaurant when your food is cold. How you treat the bus driver or the taxi driver, who is just trying to make a living just the same as you are. How you treat the librarian, how you treat people has a real big effect on your kid and sometimes it is too late for you to realize that.” Still on the wisdom and on the “things we didn’t hear for the first time on the show” train we will also get a very important piece of advice that I believe every dad and every parent and everyone that is responsible for the process of raising a child (including teachers and doctors and everyone else around the child) should take to heart: “Just be there. Be in the present, be in the moment. Dads sometimes may not get as much love in relation to the mom, when they scrape their knee they may go to mom first and that is okay. You just have to be there and be present.”                 Let’s enjoy this episode and be proud together with Eric for how many amazing things his daughter was able to do coming from her experience at home following her passion and not being afraid of the challenge ahead just like her parents even at such a young age. Let’s learn from his experience and guide our children to their own greatest achievements, during their childhood and through their whole lives.   MORE QUOTES: “Hannah is now 13 and from the moment that she could walk I always took her to shows. She was always the one that was with me with the giant headphones on and the ear muffs and I took her to everything I was doing PR for that was applicable for her. It is kinda like taking your child to workday.” “When she was 9 she went to a blogging conference in Philadelphia and she learned how to start a wordpress blog and we told her that she could start a blog but we didn’t want it to be about like pop music, we didn’t want it to be about what everyone was writing about.” “She started getting noticed in the media and in the environmental groups because there weren’t a lot of kids that were blogging about. Certainly there were a lot of kids that were doing their part but not necessarily blogging. She got asked to speak at WE day which is a huge event across North America that is organized by Free the Children.” “Her blog has grown to over a million hits and she does keynotes all around North America and she has done a couple of TedX as well. The blog is called callmehannah.ca. I think that her growing up in the environment that I was in, being around the entertainment industry really helped her know that this is a way of life for people. It may not be normal or average to your friends or family but all of it has happened to her because of her hard work and her efforts and her energy that she puts into her blog and into reading and her writing.” “Diversity dad’s out there, it is all about being a champion at your child’s interest.” “Everybody has their gift, maybe they are painters, maybe they are drawers, maybe they are great writing stories, maybe they are great with their hands working and building things or maybe it is just your time that you have to give.” “Issue plus your gift equals change. That is what Hannah likes to talk about. You find your issue, you find your gift and boom, you’ve suddenly changed the world. And as parents it feels good to encourage them. We all love our kids and for them to care about the environment, for them to care about other people, for them to have empathy for people is one of the greatest things to experience as a parent.” “I think just watching Hannah grow and realising that when I look at videos of her being on stage when she was 9 and 10 and then watching her do a 45 minute keynote now blows me away. I mean, at 9 I was still playing in mud you know. There is just something really special about watching your child love to do something and continually try to get better at it. Whether it is math homework or reading or writing or sports or just being a better brother or sister.” “We are both awful singers. But it doesn’t stop us from singing.” “I guess my answer should be actually seeing her being born and saying “oh uow, that really is amazing”. I would really take a bullet for her.” “It is about facing fears. Whether you are facing your fears as a father or whether you are performing in front of 18 thousand people. Facing your fears to be a champion, again, be a champion for your son or daughter.” “It is the art form. The very fact that you have created this podcast is success enough. Sarah Silverman, the comedian, has a great line. She says: “You know, whenever someone comes up to me and says I’m thinking about doing… she interrupts and says “You are not doing it”. Just do it.” “My struggle as a new dad, there is times where I don’t even know what I am doing but I am just going to it and doing it and I am sure a lot of dads feel that way whether they are a new dad or have other sons and daughters.” “Dads see parenting and children and babies much different than they do when it comes to moms and women. My wife would probably never let me do half the things I did with Hannah. But that is okay. I didn’t break her, I didn’t kill her. You will always be the protector. Dads can do things that moms can’t do.”   ERIC’S LINKS: @thatericalper https://twitter.com/ThatEricAlper   https://www.facebook.com/EricAlperPR https://plus.google.com/+EricAlper   That Eric Alper page: http://www.thatericalper.com/ Call me Hannah page: http://callmehannah.ca/   “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”    

Today we will learn from the story of Dan Buri an attorney by day living in the pacific northwest with his wife and two kids. He is the writer of “Pieces Like Pottery” a collection of short fiction stories about heartbreak and redemption and the creator of Nothing Any Good.com an indie author community helping other writers to become published authors. His favorite quote is “nothing any good isn’t hard” and he takes it to heart on everything he does as we will be able to testify from today’s interview. From his own experience growing up and learning from his father how to be a dad to learning how to overcome mental illness through his own experience as a father we will be amazed by his story.  “My father grew up in a broken home, his mother had extreme obsessive compulsive disorder. His father was an alcoholic and actually passed away from the disease. My dad vowed that he would be a different father than he was taught how to be a father and I am one of six children and my parents are wonderful.” His story will remind us that we can overcome our own past and be better for the ones we love and have close to us. And that even though being a father is a huge challenge in itself it is also a catalyst to change for the better. “A lot of our society actually has mental illness and I think it would be good for more people, more dads, more families to be able to understand what that means and that it really is something that is quite ordinary and something that can be lived with and managed daily.” We also had the opportunity to talk about mental illness and how being a father changed Dan’s life also on this matter. “Even more than myself my dad would be a diversity dad. Someone who really stepped out of where he came from to be an amazing father.”   Get ready for great inspiration (as always!) coming from someone that had his own struggles the same as his dad before him had his own struggles but somehow through the great experience of having a family and having children found a catalyst for change and redemption not only for themselves but for the ones that came before them. OTHER QUOTES: “My father was a wonderful father growing up. I remember as I started to get older he was never prepared to be a father. Never understood what it meant. It was the hardest job he ever had and the most fruitful job that he ever had.” “I think it has been a benefit for me to really understand my mental illness and really come to terms with what they mean and learn about myself.” “Diversity dads this will be the 150th that we said this in this show and if we say it 151 times and you get it then you have done your job. Be present (…) just show up and be your best, and if your best is 75% on that day then give them 75%.” LINKS: Instagram & Twitter: @danburi777 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorDanBuri Resources: http://www.nothinganygood.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Pieces-Like-Pottery-Dan-Buri-ebook/dp/B0163NLWDQ Danburi777 (at) gmail.com     “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”  

Today we are going to interview Jeffrey Jackson, husband, daddy to two twins (8 years old at the time of recording), salesman and the proud owner of one of the top 50 fatherhood blogs out there called Daddy is Best (dot) com. His entire blog concept and most of the content comes from a very interesting story that we are sure many parents out there will relate to even if you do not have twin children. Coming from his very rare experience of being father of twins and being older than usual for a first time dad (we are not telling his age, you can find it on the show!), having a bi-cultural household and dealing with many different people from many different backgrounds as a salesman we will get a very different and mature perspective on being a dad from Jeffrey. “Discipline is always probably the trickiest thing about being a parent these days, you never know what the right thing to do is.” We will learn from his experience as he shares some interesting key moments in which some disciplining was needed to make sure the kids understand the message and keep it while learning about responsibility and accountability as well. “You never know how you are going to be as a father, it is not like you are doing a job and you can see results immediately.”             We will also learn from him that even as an older dad with a lot more experience in life there are still moments when insecurity and uncertainty sets in. But at the same time we will learn that there are better ways to go about being a dad and it is only a matter of trying things out and being wise and patient (remember when we interviewed Ted Hecks?). “To modify their behavior they have to be involved in the process and the way to get them involved is to make that connection.” Fasten your seatbelts and prepare to have your minds filled with a very mature, interesting and exciting take on being a dad. There is a lot of knowledge to take from this episode, we sure did get a lot from it recording and getting it ready for you.   OTHER QUOTES: “The way I have evolved into disciplining is really just talking to my boys. Talking to them like an adult rather than like a child.” “Kids know what the right thing to do is. That is okay if they make mistakes, but it is important to allow them to make those mistakes.” “I thought I could come home and yell at them which would be the easy thing to do and definitely satisfy me but it wouldn’t get the point across to them about what they needed to do.” “Diversity dads you have to connect before you correct.”  “If I am in traffic I have to remember that they are in the backseat so I can’t the first word that comes on my mind. I have two audience members looking at me that I am preparing for the world.” “It’s the constant vigilance of being a dad is probably the biggest obstacle.” “I always try to give them space so they can do what they want to do and make their own mistakes without getting hurt of course.” “Just enjoy the kids and let them be kids. Let them grow up and just enjoy the process without trying to be too heavy handed in manipulating their growth.” “We are all running into the same problems and we all have the same issues. And as dads we don’t get a lot of support from the rest of the world. So for dads to connect with each other I think it is important to know that there are other dads out there that will support you. Don’t be scared to reach out. You never know how somebody else can help you with what you are dealing with.”   LINKS: @daddyisbest Daddy is Best Blog http://daddyisbest.com/ https://www.facebook.com/DaddyisBest/   “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”            

Today we will meet John Walsh the Communications Director at an IT company and father of one boy and one girl with another baby on the way (one month away at the time of recording). He also has a background in education and on this episode we will have the pleasure to listen to his awesome (and very cute) testimony as a dad going for the mission of changing the world by helping other dads be more engaged and brave when raising and teaching their kids.    “There is a lot of dads doing great things out there, when I was actually thinking about going into blogging and telling my story I was trying to find how I could fit in to the already diverse landscape of dads and what they have to say.” Coming from his background in education and his faith John decided to start “A Father’s Instruction” which awarded him the “Top Dad Blogger of 2016” title from “The Baby Spot”. His catalyst beings his own experience as a father trying to teach and raise his own children and doing so from a different, from a biblical perspective, showing to the dads out there that it is possible to help their kids grow also from that perspective. “It is actually Proverbs. When I was looking into being a father and instructions and looking into my mission, I was looking through the Bible to see what really spoke to me and what I wanted to tell other people. ”We will also get to hear amazing little stories about his kids and certainly be inspired by them and by John’s snippets of very simple but very effective and deep knowledge and wisdom when it comes to being a dad and also a husband. “What makes me a Diversity Dad is my view and how I treat fatherhood. Maybe differently than culture has shown us in the past” We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did recording and preparing it for you. Sadly it is very short but we do hope it will bring this special and very inspired taste to your ears and heart.   MORE QUOTES: “Growing up the impression of fatherhood I always got was that you needn’t be involved as a dad in raising your children (…) I like to think that a Dad is an equal partner in parenting” “What scares me about being a dad is not knowing how to be a dad” “It’s those moments when I ride home from work and the kids are at the door and they sing this new song that they wrote    themselves and it is called “Daddy is home”. It is a great song, it has two lyrics, “Daddy is home. Yiippy” over and over again.” “You do things and you may say things and you may think that they don’t hear and that they might not be watching but they are. Isn’t it amazing?” “In addition to that obstacle of finding the time to spend with them, wanting to spend more time with them but not being able to because of life’s obligations the other big obstacle of being a father is accepting the type of father I want to be despite the view of society.” “I also like to challenge them to be more involved with their kids or to look at things differently, look at things from a biblical perspective, look at things from a different perspective to see if there is a way that they could be a better dad to their kids” “My advice to dads would be to be the dad your kid needs you to be. Enjoy the moments with your kids.” JOHN’S LINKS: @fatherinstructs https://twitter.com/fatherinstructs A Father’s Instruction blog http://afathersinstruction.com/   “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”

Khalid White – Diversity Dad show notes On today’s episode of the Diversity Dad podcast we will get to know Khalid White, the proud father of the 9 years old Kahlea an aspiring gymnast and chef. He is professor at the San Jose City College where he teaches african-american ethnics studies. He is also known for founding the brand, company and movement called blkmpwr as in black empower. He is also a writer (check out his up and coming book “Black Fatherhood: Trials and Tribulations, Testimony and Triumph”). “Having a daughter young, at 26. I mean it is not the youngest in the world, but I was still young in the mind still. Just having those experiences. Having my child as I was in a kind of transition period. It helped me understand just how many diverse man has put themselves in my corner over the course of my life. So my experiences have been diverse in terms of the man who shaped and molded me.”                 Today we will be inspired by a man who knew how to embrace maturity when faced with unexpected changes and news in his young life. Learning how to grow out of his own 26 years old self into a mature and responsible dad, role model and diverse person. “In America regardless if you are an athlete a lawyer a politician what have you, you are always classifies by your race first.” We will get in touch with the motivation behind blkmpwr and how the killings of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray inspired Kahlid to create and spread a powerful message through clothing. “Diversity dads out there, we are the role models for our children (...) we want to make sure that our children do that same deal as far as whatever they believe in. Just hold firm and stand for what you believe in.” He will help us understand how being a diversity dad comes from not only ourselves but from the people that have shaped and molded us, making us not only diversity dads but diversity persons. And how even the experience of being a dad in itself makes you a diversity dad when done right. “Being a father all of these last 9 years and me learning on the go and learning how girls and young women work because that's in and on itself a diverse experience for me because I have all brothers and there weren’t too many girls.”                 He will inspire us to be better dads and better persons and to keep growing and keep learning as life throws new challenges and new trials on our path. He will inspire us to be wiser when handling with difficult situations. “It is not perfect, I am not perfect but at the same time it is about growth and it is about maturing and it is about getting better.” Get ready for a very inspiring and dad love filled episode filled with beautiful and inspiring stories that can only make us smile and feel strong and determined to take the next step and to keep moving forward and growing and making ourselves better. “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dad’s together. Peace”     OTHER QUOTES: “I think more and more you are going to start seeing athletes speak up and speak out. Particularly those high profile athletes.” “Getting the news that I was going to be a dad and my daughter being born that made me kind of grow up and start trying to plan different moves for myself and for her future and just for my long term future to be in her life.” “Communication is key. Even though we are not together we still have to have a relationship for the sake of our daughter and for the sake of our daughter being healthy mentally and emotionally. Communication is important. Positive communication is important.” “It is hard to pinpoint one thing that has me the most excited about being a dad but the fact that I get a chance to really carve a real relationship with my daughter.”  “There is one moment I will never forget, that is the first time that my daughter called me daddy. That was a very proud moment. I teared up.” “The biggest obstacle that I have overcome is understanding that time spent is more important than money spent. (…) Money can never take the place of time. Money can never take the time of youth.” “Take on the challenges of being a father head on. Embrace that and continue to be that male role model, that influential person in your son’s or daughter’s life.”   LINKS: http://www.blkmpwr.com/ Twitter - @brother_white https://twitter.com/brother_white Facebook - @blkmpwr https://www.facebook.com/blkmpwr

On today’s episode we have something special for all dads out there that listen to us. We had the pleasure to interview Brandie Weikle, single mother of two and the long-time parenting editor, writer and spokesperson creator of thenewfamily.com from Toronto, Canada. Dads from the perspective of a mom. Brandie took her passion for writing and interest for the family subject to the next level by creating the blog thenewfamily.com and the 1000 families project podcast. At episode 200+ we are sure there is a ton of inspiring stories to listen to. “We are showcasing the first person stories of people telling what family means to them until we get to 1000” We will talk about how she started noticing the changes in the way families are portrayed on parenting media coming from her own experiences from the changes on her own family and how all of those factors made her and many other families and individuals feel badly about how different their families were from that mold. “I could see that mainstream parenting media would cover families in this way with this sort of default voice that assumes that every family is a mom and a dad, two kids and maybe that golden retriever.” She will shed some light on how the dad role on the family is perceived on times we live in starting from how our ancestors raised their kids up to now where we have so much variety but not so much acceptance. “Family could look like a lot of different things. My site is about allowing people, giving them permission to celebrate their family and to believe that their family can look any way that they want to. That is up to them.” We will once again learn the importance of being there for our kids (remember when we interviewed Ted Hicks on Episode # 37?) and family and how that is made difficult for dads because of the way most of the society still see the dad’s role on the family. “Men have to do more pioneering in the workplace in order to take that break when they have a baby, get a little bit of parental leave. That is na issue for sure.”                 For all the dads out there that are part of a man and woman kind of family we will get a great start on something called “maternal gatekeeping” and learn how we should stand up to it while also keeping up with the partner’s expectations for the family and the kids. “I think this (maternal gatekeeping) is something that can go on that dads need to be aware of. Sometimes, just like men have their programming “you should be a breadwinner” despite it being 2016 now, women also have a lot of guilt around being the primary caregiver.” Mainly we will learn that we should be confident as dads, helping out also as the primary caregiver and not just as a occasional babysitter that brings home the money to pay for the bills. “They (the families) are allowed to define their family any old way that they want.”                 And don’t fight about it, just be smart and cooperative to make the family work peacefully and beautifully. Fasten your seatbelts for another amazing interview full of insight from a different point of view and perspective. Full of advice, tips and tricks and things to put in practice right now! “I just want dads to feel encouraged to hang in there for it. Because it is worth it in the long run”   MORE QUOTES: B - “Some of the richest connections are the ones that can be formed outside of the expected. My wish for dads is for them to feel confident in their role and in their importance because they are very important and no matter what your circumstances are (…) your role is important and being there in a consistent way is important.”   J - “Just keep fighting. Just because your family needs you (…) they need you.” B - “Make sure that you are there for every possible special thin that you can be there for. Show up. Make it to the soccer game, make it to the birthday party, the Christmas concert (…) Whatever it is (…) It sucks to disappoint kids” B - “Today we can take a bit at heart that technology can help to connect us. So if you don’t have as much time with you children as you like, skype, facetime, cell phone. Send them messages in instagram direct. Wherever they are make sure you are there and utilising those ways to connect because they really can help bridge the distance.” J - “Keep it about the kids and do your best to overcome obstacles.” B - “Wherever you are, look around. Go to meetup.com and see if there is a single parent group or a dads group. Something you can tap in to. There are very often parenting courses available near you and a little online research can cap you into some really great stuff both virtual and in person.” “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace”   RESOURCES: 1000 Families Project - http://thenewfamily.com/tag/1000-families-project/ The New Family Blog - http://thenewfamily.com Diversity Dad Podcast (Website coming soon and yes, that is us !) - https://www.facebook.com/diversitydad/  The Good Men Project - https://goodmenproject.com/ LINKS: Brandie’s Instagram (@bran_weikle) - https://www.instagram.com/bran_weikle/

Hello Diversity Dad Community! Just wanted to thank you all for the support and love that I've been receiving for this podcast. Please leave a rating and review on iTunes or Stitcher radio to help the show to get noticed. What a ride it's been sharing with you all out there. I have been receiving a lot of love on the direction of the podcast, but I want to hear from you all on what things you like or maybe things you want to change with the podcast.  Please send me an e-mail at team@diversitydad.com to let me know your thoughts or if you want to be a guest on the show you can email me and we can figure out how to get you on the podcast.  Interact with me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/diversitydad/ Interact with me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DiversityDad Excited to hear what you all have to say.  Let's learn together. Let's grow together. Let's be DADS together.  We are all Diversity Dads!

Ted Hicks, the IT guy and father of two kids. A 9 years old boy and a 14 years old girl. He is a fellow podcaster, hosting the Late Night Parents show in the oldest Long Island's NYC radio station and the Baseball, Beer and Barbecue podcast. Besides those passions he dedicates his time to gaming, blogging and Fantasy Football (according to his own words he is an expert in his own mind such as we all are!) It is amazing to learn how he uses his passion about sports, games and technology which are some of his kids’ passions as well, to interact with his son and daughter in an amazing way. Creating an improbable but very open and strong channel of communication.   “You think about the old school dad. I think about my dad. He is old school. He would come in; he will work his shift. He’s gonna speak a few words of wisdom to us. And either go to sleep or handle his business, do what he needs to do leading the family. And it worked for us back then. But that was a different era.”   In this episode we will learn a lot from his experience keeping himself up to date with the current trends and the trends his kids follow to connect to them on their own level. Dealing with bullying when one of his own kids gets to be the bully. How he keeps up with his family activities and how important those are to him (why it should be important to us as well). We will be inspired by his passion for his family and the challenges of being a good dad (and husband) at every opportunity.   “You gotta watch some of the shows that they are watching. You focus on being hip, being in the know while also parenting with them. Because then you are not speaking two different languages.” “Playing video games with them they open up to so many different other topics”   It is very interesting to see his perspective on parenthood. He understands very well the huge gap from his generation in terms of the role of the parents in a child's upbringing and it is amazing to listen how he takes this understanding to the next level on the ways he interacts and teach life lessons to his kids. We will learn how he teaches his kids how to be humble and know how to fail and be the loser using gaming and his own lie stories.   “In defeat you need to know how to be just as graceful as when you are winning”   Throughout the whole interview we will also learn about his perspective of the different roles of moms and dads and how the gaps can be filled in. The huge difference between father’s day and mother’s day and how those are portrayed in the media and out there in advertisements and on the news and the effect it has on people. Fasten your seat belts for a awesome interview with an awesome dad and person. A very inspiring conversation filled with passion and insight. Useful for any kind of parent out there looking to raise their kids the best way possible. “Enjoy fatherhood. Enjoy every part of it because when you blink your eyes your child is going off to college or they are getting married and you know, they are grown.”   QUOTES: “The dads in general should write a book and everyone should get a chapter for themselves” “Everything nowadays is more headed towards the moms. And it has always been like that” “Take that time out. Making every last minute count ... not that the job doesn’t matter ... But I have been blessed in a situation where I have flex time and I am in a flexible environment.” “Be there. Have your eye on the pulse. Know what is happening. Be involved. Be hip. Be in the know.” LINKS: @realtedhicks @latenightparents https://www.facebook.com/latenightparents http://latenightparents.com/ Baseball Beer BBQ podcast & blog https://twitter.com/baseballbeerbbq https://baseballbeerbbq.com/     “Let’s learn together. Let’s grow together. Let’s be dads together. Peace.”              

Jonathan Seeber, most commonly known as John is the single dad of Tristan his teenage boy. John is also a musician, cook and accountant. He is one of the members of Post Rapture Party, an Alternative-Indie-Melodic-Dark Rock band and 6 Minutes to Midnight a band with an Alternative-Reggae-Rockabilly sound (check them out on facebook) both from the Seattle area. From growing up on a bicultural environment to living abroad he brings a different perspective to the table from his life experience, specially by raising his son that has Autism. On his own words “Autism is a really broad term” and he takes it to heart shedding some light into what it really means and the challenges that it entails.  In this episode he will share some tips and tricks for tax paying parents (aren’t we all…) and share some of his experience with raising a kid that has any kind of autism. We will learn about his roots and the native American customs of passing down their heritage to their sons and daughters making sure that they live through their heritage and experience part of their culture. We will learn the importance of being patient with our kids and the importance of knowing how and which battles to pick. Dealing with children is not easy and John is not short of challenges yet he gives us an amazing perspective: “Jamal: What is the one thing that has you the most excited about being a dad? John: Just the adventure. Seeing all the daily accomplishments and trials and tribulations. Going from being this tiny baby in my arms all the way up to a teenager almost the same size as I am.” Words that he holds true to heart during this interview showing us the amazing and unconditional love he shares with his son. “John: Your children, all of them are going to be different. They may agree with you on certain things, they might not agree with you on other things. But be patient. It is definitely about patience.”   Stay tuned for yet another amazing Diversity Dad episode filled with great stories, advice and inspiration.   “Autism is a really broad term.”   “I have been to Juneau and Anchorage, the climate specially during spring and summer is very similar to western Washington except that the mosquitos are huge.”   “You had lots of adventures with your son educating him on his culture.”   “What is the one thing that has you the most excited about being a dad? Just the adventure. Seeing all the daily accomplishments and trials and tribulations. Going from being this tiny baby in my arms all the way up to a teenager almost the same size as I am.”   “As the parent of any teenager out there I think (the challenge) is really learning how to pick your battles. Especially when you have a child on the autistic spectrum.”   “My grandmother looks at my mom: You know what? One kid takes 24 hours a day. 5 kids take 24 hours a day.”   “Just be patient.”   “As Tristan moved into being a teenager I can see some of the family rebellious traits popping out. Just be patient, learn, pick the battles.”   “Your children, all of them are going to be different. They may agree with you on certain things, they might not agree with you on other things. But be patient. It is definitely about patience.”   INTERVIEW LINKS: POST RAPTURE PARTY https://www.facebook.com/PostRaptureParty http://postraptureparty.moonfruit.com/   6 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT https://www.facebook.com/6MinutesToMidnight      

Ayesha Scott (Director) and Segilola Ogidan (Producer) are currently working together on an emotional drama called ABSENT, which showcases the struggles and long-term effects of absent fathers on single mothers and the trials and tribulations faced. “Nothing is weaker than a man who hurts his child or children by his actions and words.” Ayesha and Segilola were asked what the motivation was for this film. Ayesha says after she had her second son and the son’s father abandoned his responsibilities to his son that is when she realized what being a single mom really was. “It was really difficult; it was a massive struggle. I wanted to bring this subject matter to the forefront of main stream media.” Segilola says most of the screenwriting in the industry is done by men and they wanted it to be addressed women, using their own stories and experiences. “I am sick and tired of this stigma that is surrounding the angry black woman. A lot of people don’t give black women the opportunity to explain or to tell their story, they just have a five minute chat with them and then make up their own idea about why they are angry.” Segilola says it is the responsibility of African American women to change the stigma they face in parenting roles. “It’s down to us to tell our stories and I know there are already situations in place to squash that, to stop or discourage us from telling our stories but we have got to fight through those barriers. Nothing is impossible.” “We can influence people; we can influence the world if we work together.” When asked what they hope fathers can take away from this movie, Ayesha said she wants fathers to understand the struggle and hardship that single mothers have to go through when the fathers become absent. “…also the financial burden and the emotional and physical strain of raising a child where essentially it’s something that God has intended two people to do.” She says where most cases it is ‘out of sight, out of mind’ maybe this film will help some dads really see the struggle. Segilola says her hope is for absent fathers to realize this is not the normal. “It takes two to make the babies so it takes two people to be responsible for that life.” Segilola says the biggest struggles while still shooting the film is raising funds and getting financed. She says the obstacles around finance are because they are two black women and the financers want an action or horror movies, not dramas. They believe women and mothers can encourage men to break the cycle and be there for their children. “Moms need to encourage men to be involved in every aspect of their children’s lives and their upbringing; why not get them involved in their health and well being and schooling.” Women should put away their anger and bitterness. They say it’s difficult when you go through certain situations, but sometimes it is a two ways street. INTERVIEW LINKS: www.AbsentMovieUK.com www.ascottproductions.com www.OKPProductions.com

Alex Barnett is a stand-up comic, podcaster and multi-cultural family man. He’s appeared on Katie Couric, Sirius XM Raw Dog Comedy Hits and was featured in the Wall Street Journal, as well as Huffington Post and other popular publications and shows. He is also the host of the MultiRacial Family Man podcast here he discusses issues of concern to multi-racial people within multi-racial families. He is also the co-founder of Jewish Fathers Comedy Tour and active with other comedic acts in the New York City area.   In order to mesh everything he does together, Alex says he’s jus done it “a bit at a time.”   He believes that becoming a dad has been a great source of comedic material.   “Most of my act is talking about stuff that’s happening in my life”   His podcast was an effort to continue the conversation about the issues he talks about on stage, but in a less comedic context.   Alex says the chance to add comedy and multi-racial topics presented themself naturally, as his wife is black and he’s wife. Also, he’s Jewish and his wife is converted.   “That was a fact of our life together. In comedy, the topics you can best present are true to your own life.”   Alex believes that there is still a lot to be done in terms of racism in the country.   “Talking about these things is of the moment and important, so that’s why I cover those matters”   He feels that he is a Diversity Dad by definition, being a diverse family. He also feels he is diverse in that he has a good level of empathy and sensitivity towards people of other races and ethnicities.   As Alex has gotten older, he’s learned to be more mindful, and he practices meditation daily.   “When you’re mindful, you consciously slow yourself down”   He says by doing this and exploring the world, you’ll find most people are good by nature.   Alex shares that finding time for himself isn’t easy, and it’s a commodity that no one has an endless supply of.   “You have a finite amount of time on the planet, but most people probably are not maximizing the use of their time”   He believes that to a certain extent, the busier you are, you’ll be more efficient.   The one thing that Alex is most excited about in terms of being a dad is just being able to spend time with his son.   “It’s the best time of my day”   He adds that being a parent is better than any other career that he can think of.   “Literally, if I lost everything but still had my kid, I’d be way, way ahead”   Alex’s proudest moment as a dad was when he saw his son born.   “That’s when you’re transformed, literally”   He feels that finding the resources to provide for his family, making time for everyone and making sure he’s raising his child to make the right decisions are all obstacles that he’s overcome as a dad.   An important decision that he’s had to make involves his son’s bedtime. Alex is often up late with his comedy, and his wife works often works late. This tends to set a tone that a later bedtime is normal for his son.   “I’m constantly asking myself if I’m making him go to sleep because it’s good for him, or because we just want to make sure he knows we’re in charge”   He finds that he and his wife are often leaving the decision of going to bed to their child, when he’s tired.   “When they see that they can make the decision for themselves, they actually will do what you want them to do anyway”   Alex adds that it’s important to establish boundaries, but not push too much within them.   His one piece of advice for dads is to remember that your child is an individual, and going to have thoughts and feelings that are different than yours. It’s a delicate balancing act to establish good foundational concepts, but give them ample room to make decisions.   “People only get better at making decisions if they make them; that starts at a young age.”   INTERVIEW LINKS:   www.AlexBarnettComic.com (for bio & videos)   @BarnettComic (Twitter)   www.Facebook.com/AlexBarnettComic            

Michael Vance – Show Notes    Michael is a technical writer for a software company based in Houston, Texas, and he’s the dad of a 2.5 -year old boy who is the light of his life. Michael also volunteers with an afterschool program called Five Star Life, which teaches and encourages middle school students to embody the principles of courage, responsibility, integrity, sacrifice and respect. He is the co-host of the Better Father, Husband, Man podcast.     Michael says he volunteers with children in middle school because that’s often the age when they start going off track in terms of alcohol and drug use, among other problems.     “We want to encourage them to be leaders and examples in their homes”     The Five Star Life program has been in existence for about 10 years, beginning in Indiana.     Michael and his wife are intercultural, with her being from Nigeria, which he says in part makes him a Diversity Dad. They blend their cultures together and discuss how they want to raise their son.     “To take the best of both of these worlds and kind of meld them together”    As well, his life experiences of living in some unique places has giving him a unique perspective of the world.     He has his son interact with other people and his wife is teaching him her native language. Michael is a big believer of introducing his son to music from other cultures.     Seeing what his son is going to “latch on to” and become involved in is what has Michael most excited.    “I’m just excited to see him grow and take ownership of what he wants to do with his life”     He’s most proud of seeing his son play the drums and practice, as well as the first time he held his son.     “It was humbling to hold him and realize he was my responsibility”     As a father, Michael tries to stand up to the standard his father set for him.     His biggest obstacle has been learning to sacrifice things, which was difficult because there are certain things he still wants to do.     “He needs to interact with me. I need to interact with him.”    The bonding relationship between father and son actually starts right away and you can miss out on so much when you neglect your children.     One piece of advice Michael can give is to embrace the role of fatherhood.     “Fatherhood is an awesome responsibility, and we play a critical role in the lives of our children”     INTERVIEW LINKS:     www.BetterHFM.com     www.Twitter.com/Better_HFM    https://www.facebook.com/betterhfm/?fref=ts    BetterHFM@Gmail.com

Nate Turner – Show Notes     Nate Turner is a father, entrepreneur and motivational speaker. He’s the author of “Raising Supaman” and the upcoming book “Stop The Bus: A Critique of and Counsel for America’s Educational System.” Nate is also the creator of a program called The GPS, where he teaches parents on how to engage and become zealous advocates for their children.    For his first book, Nate published a collection of letters he wrote his son from ages two to 16. He says his motivation for doing this was the poor relationship he had with his father.     “When I realized I was going to be a parent, one of the things I wanted to make sure I did was that I didn’t mess up my relationship with my son”     The cards and letters Nate wrote helped his son start reading shortly after he turned three years old.     “They were actually more than notes. I mean they’re life lessons.”     Being part of a race that makes up a small segment of fathers is what makes Nate a Diversity Dad, as well his opinions and perspectives on fatherhood. Nate also says the challenges he’s overcome as a father contributes to him being a Diversity Dad.     “(Diversity) is so ambiguous and means so much to so many different people”     Watching his son grow up to be the man he’s become is one of the things that has Nate most excited about being a dad. His son finished in the top 1% for SAT scores, as well as being an All-American in track.     “There’s no one thing I’m most excited about. Just the journey itself has been phenomenal.”     He says one of the proudest moments he’s had as a dad is when his son ran a track meet at 8 years old, and won. After the race, he ran off the track and hopped into Nate’s arms.     “My proudest moment, I suppose, is just him being born and having the opportunity to be a father”     Nate developed an intricate study system based on neuroscience and other things such as nutrition, to help his son succeed.    “I’ve always felt responsible for his success and I’ve always felt to blame for his failure”    He says it’s his role to make sure his son has the right tools to navigate life.    “Whenever he needs me to help him avoid a pitfall or minefield, that’s what I do”     With his GPS System, Nate does a process called “backward design.” He asks parents a first set of questions involving what their hopes and dreams are for their children, and then ones involved parent’s engagement.  This will determine a two-part score, with a probability index of how likely it is their children will reach their goals.     “Any score of less than 100%, we help the parent with a roadmap to help them get there”     His biggest obstacle has just been not being like his own father.    “I just worry about consistently being his father every day and the other stuff I just don’t worry about”     Nate believes that nothing will happen by accident. If you want a great relationship with your kids, you’ll have to plan for it. To do this himself, Nate wrote a pledge consisting of 10 things.     His one piece of advice to other parents is to just enjoy every single moment of the journey.     INTERVIEW LINKS:     www.RaisingSupaman.com     https://www.facebook.com/RaisingSupaman/?fref=ts    @Supamans_Dad (Instagram) 

Janet Lansbury – Show Notes     Janet Lansbury is a renowned author, with a new book recently published called “No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame.” She is a parenting teacher, a lecturer and she has over 20 years of experience guiding hundreds of parents and their toddlers.     Janet says that the concept for her book comes from the recognition that children are born as whole people.     “They’re not bad seeds that we have to turn into good plants”     She felt compelled to write the book and says children need guides as they’re going to experiment will all sorts of behaviors.     “Your ultimate goal is having a respectful, trusting, close relationship with your child”     By telling kids that they are bad, they will end up acting uncomfortably in the relationship, which Janet says won’t help them.     She has three children, and when she first gave birth, she thought it would be natural and her instincts would just take over. She ended up finding herself surprised and overwhelmed.     “I realized I needed some kind of framework, of structure”     She heard about the RIE Approach, founded by Magda Gerber. She went to one of the classes and found it made sense, and it made her enjoy parenting so much more.     She started training with Magda Gerber and teaching her methods, which allowed her to be in a classroom with parents. By doing this, Janet was able to see how they interacted with their children.     “It’s an incredible way of learning that really can’t be matched. There was nothing like this experience.”     Janet believes that it comes down to how we perceive our children. She went from seeing her baby as someone that needed to be provided for to someone that was interesting on her own. She wanted to learn more about her baby, and her passions.     The RIE Approach creates spaces that are safe for children, where they can do what they want. She calls this a “Yes” space.     This provides a chance to develop the most ideal parent-child relationship.    “(As parents) we have a lot of power; so we get to really work on ourselves here.”    Janet shares that there has been a shift over the past 5 years, with more dads attending her classes and some of her classes being made up entirely of men.     “Know that your job is to be a leader in terms of behaviour and what you’re going to let your kids do”     She says that toddlers often push limits. It’s a time when children are making a huge step in their own development, towards being more separate from their parents in terms of how they think about themselves.     Janet believes that it’s actually very healthy, as they are trying to be their own person.     “You’ve got to keep reminding yourself, there’s always a reason (they’re acting a certain way). It’s always healthy for them to get it out of their bodies.”     Her books are a collection of over 400 articles she’s written for her website in the past 6 years.     The biggest challenge she faced was being attacked by others when she first started writing.     “I don’t like that people are saying mean things but I still believe in this. In a way, it gives you more confidence in yourself.”    Janet’s goal with her articles is just to help others, and make their lives easier.     “When I write just to help, it’s really hard for people to argue with it”     Her husband edits her articles, and Janet says that they get along better because they work together.     INTERVIEW LINKS:     www.JanetLansbury.com    https://www.facebook.com/janetlansburyElevatingChildCare    *Janet also hosts her own podcast, “Respectful Parenting: Janet Lansbury Unruffled”

Tanel Jappinen – Show Notes     Tanel Jappinen, also known as “TJ’, is the proud husband and new father to a baby girl that just turned one year old. He’s the host of the Brave New Father podcast, which is #1 on iTunes in the Kids & Family category.     Originally from Europe, TJ was recruited for a sales internship in his second year of university to come to the United States. In this role, while he held for 11 years, he sold educational books to families. During his time with the company, he met face-to-face with over 20,000 families.     “I got to know the families, their priorities and what their goals are”     He says the families he met with had all kinds of different backgrounds, including rich and poor.     “The most inspiring families that I had a chance to meet with were the ones that really lived their family life intentionally. They knew what their values were and they structured their life around them.”     TJ considers himself a Diversity Dad because he’s new to fatherhood and just trying to figure things out himself.     Being a Millennial himself, it’s very encouraging to read how this generation of dads is suppose to change the core of parenting styles.     “A lot of the dads I know do have the intent to be a lot more involved than their parents were”     For a big part of his baby’s life, he says he worked “crazy” hours, often totalling over 70 per week. Four months ago, he decided to leave this job and stay home with his daughter.     TJ discovered that it wasn’t easy to stay at home, as the need to chase his career goals and provide for his family was so ingrained in him. Needing to do something else, besides staying at home, he decided to start the podcast and share his own fatherhood journey with others.     He feels that seeing his daughter’s most primal human emotions playing out, without filters, has been the most exciting part of being a dad. He says she’s been able to express her own wants and needs, in her own way.     “It’s kind of like a learning experience for her, and us as well. She really doesn’t have any hidden agendas to her actions. She’s as pure as can be.”     His biggest challenge has been learning that it takes a lot of patience to work with little ones, and things don’t always go to plan.     “It’s still tough. I’m reminded of these challenges everyday, but I haven’t had any days without being thankful that I have this tiny human being in my life.”     He says that quitting his job and becoming more comfortable with his sensitive side have been his proudest moments of being a dad.     TJ has never considered himself an emotional guy, but says that something changed when he first heard his daughter’s heartbeat during an ultrasound.     “It’s important to be vulnerable as a parent, especially as a dad”     His biggest obstacle was getting the courage to leave his job to stay home.     “I think the fact that I had the courage to make this step for my family, makes me feel good about my own fatherhood journey. Becoming a parent changes your goals and your dreams.”     One piece of advice he can give is to take care of yourself and the relationship with your spouse. He shares that at times, he and his wife haven’t prioritized their own relationship.     “I think it does start with the man in the mirror. Just taking the responsibility and focusing on things I feel are important”     “It takes conscious effort to come through and show up as a husband as well”     “I strongly believe that one of the biggest things that dads can do for their kids, is to love their mother unconditionally”     INTERVIEW LINKS:     www.BrandNewFather.com    www.Facebook.com/BrandNewFather    @BrandNewFather (Twitter)

Trevor Mulligan – Show Notes   Trevor Mulligan is the blogger extraordinaire who created One Stay at Home Dad. He is also the co-organizer of a Los Angeles dads group, and a proud husband and father with two sons.   Trevor considers himself more of a storyteller than a writer. He says he got this gift from listening to his own father tell stories around the campfire.   “Storytelling helps connect people”   From attending different dad events and meeting new people, he’s discovering now that he is a connector.   “It’s the connections we make with other people in our world right now; that excites me”   Trevor considers himself a diversity dad as he quit his job 5 years ago to stay at home, which is against what society considers normal.   “I just basically broke the rules that society has somehow put in place”   He says this doesn’t matter to him, and all that is important is that he does what’s best for himself, his wife and his family.   Trevor is learning every day and says that parenthood is like a “rollercoaster.”   He says that the quality of time you spend with your kids is more important than the quantity of time you’re with them.   “It’s important for us to do what makes us happy. That’s what’s going to be projected down to our kids.”   He’s part of multiple Facebook groups, which makes up a large community of dads. A few years ago, someone asked him to be on a television interview, which led to a member of a New York Dads group approaching him about starting a Los Angeles chapter. The LA group now has over 500 members.   “It’s an amazing connection with other dads that are in the same boat that you are in”   The one thing that has excited Trevor most as a dad is being able to see the world through his sons’ eyes. By doing this, he says that he is rediscovering an innocence that he lost years ago.   His proudest moment was hearing his oldest son tell his younger brother “you’ll never know if you can, unless you try.”   Everything Trevor does as a stay at home dad, he credits his wife for, as she’s provided for the family. She also encouraged him to join his first dads group.   His oldest son has been surfing since he was 2.5 years old.   “If you can find something that they love to do, let them do it”   His mantra, and one that he tells his sons, is:   “If you want to get better at anything, you have to practice”   Trevor’s biggest obstacle has been his own patience, which he says he is working on everyday.   “To be able to slow down and not only enjoy the moments, but to go at their pace”   His advice to parents is to be present when they are with their children.   “Get on their level. Be in their moment. Be present in what they’re doing.”   INTERVIEW LINKS:   www.oneSAHD.com www.Facebook/oneSAHD.com Twitter: @oneSAHD Instagram: oneSAHD      

Dr. Michelle Watson – Show Notes  (Diversity Dad)    Dr. Michelle Watson is the author of “Dad, Here’s What I Really Need from You”. She’s the founder of The Abba Project, a ministry formed to help dads connect to their daughters’ hearts.  She earned her BS in Biblical Education and also attended Lewis & Clark College in Oregon. She maintains a full-time counselling practice and also speaks on the body image, faith, healing and relationships.     Dr. Watson’s passion over the past 6 years has been to come alongside father with daughters in between the ages of 13 and 30.     “I’m helping dads to decode their daughters. It’s my joy, passion and delight to do that.”     In 2009, Dr. Watson was reading her bible and came across the story of Zachariah, who’s son John was told he’d turn the hearts of fathers to their children.    “Right then, I got the sense that what was I was suppose to do; to help dads do that.”    In January 2010, she wrote an email to 11 dads who’s daughters she was counselling, asking them to join her once a month for 6 months to see if there was a way to change their father/daughter relationship. All of the fathers, except one, replied and committed to it. She’s now in her 7th group, and more dads are approaching her for continued help.     Dr. Watson gives the following steps to become “dialled in” as a dad:     Take action (inviting each kid out on a minimum once a month one-on-one date)   Be the man you want her to marry (think long-term)   Be consistent     She says that a dad almost always has the time to spend with his daughter, but is making choices that don’t have her as a priority.  She reminds listeners that we all have the same amount of time in a day.    Dr. Watson advises that dads ask for help from their spouses, if needed, when feeling confused or lost in their relationships with their daughters.     “You’re a partnership at the core. Just know that your daughter needs your strength. She needs you through the course of her whole life.”     It can go a long way if a father can admit failure.    “We actually think more of you when you can admit human failure”    Dr. Watson shares that getting angry can crush a child’s spirit. Her one piece of advice for dads is to drop the anger.    “More damage happens when disciplining in anger”     Every Friday, Dr. Watson writes a blog for dads and daughters, which can also be applicable to dads with sons (see “Interview Links” for website details)    INTERVIEW LINKS:     www.drmichellewatson.com    www.Facebook.com/DrMichelleWatson     @MWatsonPHD (Twitter)  

Self-Episode #1 – Social Media & Parenting    Social media is the wave of the future, and by embracing it, parents can find further ways to connect with their children. In this episode of Diversity Dad, we explore the world of social media and how it relates to parenting!    The Internet is fairly new, but coming into its own as far as the tools available and what can be done with it. This is particularly true with social media.     Mothers and fathers that previously didn’t want to get on social media are now on Facebook, while kids are starting to leave Facebook for “new and fresh” platforms like Snapchat.     How can we as parents, connect with our children through social media?     1) Be realistic with where you’re at     Make sure you can navigate the computer. To learn more about the various social media platforms, you can search YouTube for “how to” videos.     “It’s just educating yourself on what’s out there, and asking how I can get better”     2) Understand that your child may not want you on social media     As a parent, you need to have that conversation and your children know that you want to be a connected parent. Don’t track everything they do, but “heart”, “like” and “retweet” their posts. By doing so, you will strengthen your relationship with them. However, it’s important to lay down certain ground rules so that the privacy of your children is maintained.     3) Ride the wave of social media    Snapchat was created in 2011 and now has over 100 million active users.     “(Snapchat) is fun, innovative and really speaks to how life is. You just really capture moments.”     The Diversity Dad Resource Series Part 2, focuses on dads facing challenges such as divorce, and how to deal with certain situations. We will do so by featuring stories from actual dads.    “This is our podcast; you are all the highlight of this podcast. We want to make sure we are really focusing on how to help you all get better with your life.”     Sometimes it’s easier said than done to spend more time with your kids due to the demands of today. It’s challenging, but us as fathers need to make sure we spend enough time with our kids.     INTERVIEW LINKS:     http://thebabyspot.ca/the-evolution-of-snapchat-and-parenting-by-jamal-chukueke/    Website – www.diversitydad.com    Email: team@diversitydad.com    Facebook: www.Facebook.com/DiversityDad    Twitter- @diversitydad    Instagram – @diversitydad    SnapChat – Jama’l Chukueke – diversity dad    Periscope- @DiversityDad   

Vanessa Merten – Show Notes     Vanessa Merten is the fabulous host of the Pregnancy Podcast, which talks about the process of a mother carrying a child for 9 months. She shares with listeners the steps to follow during, and after, the pregnancy, and is a first-time mom herself to a beautiful 16 month old boy.     When she was expecting, Vanessa and her husband were having a tough time finding great resources with information on pregnancy.    “(Our podcast) is the resource that we wish we would have had when we were expecting”     She had some really good friends in the podcast world to help her with her show. It was a challenge to find the time, but she made an effort to work on the show at nights when her baby went to bed. Little by little, the show came together and she was able to launch it.     Vanessa shares that so much focus is on moms, that dads don’t get a lot of attention. Still, she says that they are a key part of a pregnancy as they offer support from “Day 1”, when the couple discovers they’re pregnant.     “It can be a challenge to make sure you communicate and get on the same page. You really are a team.”     Vanessa currently works at her 9-5 job while her husband stays home with their son. It’s been challenging for her to leave her baby during the day, but she is glad he gets to spend time with his dad.    “If I can’t be there, that’s definitely my next choice”     It’s been challenging for her husband as well, as she says that fathers usually don’t have as strong of a bond, that innate connection, with their child that mothers do.     Fear of the unknown is common amongst new fathers. Vanessa recommends doing as much research as possible to make the process of becoming a father less scary.     Vanessa feels that it takes “a village” to raise a child. She’s lucky to have great friends and family that have helped her.    “We try to be so independent today, but you really need to ask for help if you need it”     Her and her husband join support groups, but took a birth class that they found very helpful.    While in the delivery room, dads just have to be there, and be present, by helping their partner in any way that they can.  Once home, this help should continue. Vanessa’s husband changed almost every diaper for the first week out of the hospital.     Her one piece of advice to new parents, or soon to be parents, is:     “Just know that everything will work out. It can be so stressful, but you and your partner are going to find solutions. You’re not going to have everything figured out overnight.”    Vanessa is releasing a podcast episode specifically for dads on December 13th.     INTERVIEW LINKS:     www.PregnancyPodcast.com    * Vanessa is also on Facebook, Instagram, Google+ and Twitter (@PregPodcast)

Jennifer Jordan – Show Notes     Jennifer K. Jordan is a California-based author with a passion for celebrating the spiritual in our daily lives and educating others. She has worked as a writer and teacher and holds dual Master’s Degrees in Education and School Counselling. As a huge advocate of equal parenting for dads, Jennifer spent many years searching for and interviewing the fathers of Dadly Wisdom, her book which presents a positive image of the active dad. She now offers their powerful stories in this transformative book of love, joy and inspiration.     Jennifer says her motivation for writing her book was her own dad. When her mother passed away in 1998, she got to know her father in a whole new way.     “I came to really appreciate his wisdom as a father”     She was already a writer, and starting asking people if they knew wise dads not only in her locally, but also in other states, for her book about fathers. Jennifer ended up interviewing 100 fathers, and chose 52 to appear in the book.     Most of the dads she spoke with were older, and she got a sense that to acquire wisdom, life experience is needed. She says the most common characteristic was that they were extremely humble.    “They were just going about their business; feeling called to the responsibility of being a dad.”     Jennifer also says many of them were service-oriented, not just with their family, but with their community.  In addition to this trait, many were men of faith and had an optimistic spirit.     She believes that no one had ever asked them how it felt to be a dad.    “They really love their families and want to talk. I don’t feel like they’re given much invitation to do that in life.”     Jennifer noticed that her own dad became much more vulnerable after her mother passed away, and they shared on a much different level as a result.     “I think our relationship was enhanced. We got to know each other as people.”     The main thing she wants readers to take away from the book is that dads are not alone. She hopes fathers will learn from the stories in the book, as the men interviewed were from many different walks of life. She believes it will help them become even better dads and gain more wisdom about life in general. Finally, she feels that men will have more courage to speak out about their feelings.     “I’m hopeful (the book) will inspire (dads) to be more intentional about passing on their wisdom. That’s invaluable.”    Jennifer says that it’s not society’s norm for dads to share their feelings, and it takes a lot of strength for them to realize that sharing won’t take away from their manhood.     Her biggest challenge in writing the book was the sheer magnitude of the project. Project co-ordination was difficult, as the fathers were in other states and countries, and had to approve the final draft. It took one busy dad 8 months to approve his part of the book.     “I was committed to what I was doing, and willing to wait. It was all worth it.”    Jennifer also says that cold calls were often hard to make, as well as interviewing prominent men.     “They were still dads; they just love their kids and wanted to share. No matter how successful they were, being a dad was far more important.”     To support dads, mothers can “step out of the way.” Talking to them about how they feel about being a father and celebrating them for taking care of the family as well is important.     INTERVIEW LINKS:     http://www.jenniferkarinjordan.com/    @JKJWisdomSeries

Kevin Renner – Show Notes   In this installment of the Diversity Dad Resource Series, Jama’l talks with Kevin Renner. Kevin interviewed over 50 women worldwide for his book, “In Search of Fatherhood.” He received his social science degree from the University of California, as well as an MBA. While attending post-graduate school, he lived with over 600 women and men from around the world at an international house. He was previously in marketing for start up companies, as well as successful global companies. Kevin has an interest in cross-cultural perspectives, which has given him the opportunity to work throughout Europe, as well as Asia.   Kevin had the idea to write his book when his daughters were 9 and 13 years old. He realized that although men learn a lot from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, nowhere are they taught how to raise a little girl into womanhood.   “Here’s the most important thing we have to do, and it’s the thing that we’re the least equipped in”   He struggled himself with the issue and was told that if he wanted to learn how to be a father, especially to young girls, he’d have to go talk with women.   “Every woman, is by definition, a daughter”   Kevin originally began speaking with women that he was friends with about how their lives were shaped by their fathers. He then decided to expand to outside of his social circle, to women around the globe. He spoke with people from 19 different countries, from ages 20 to 90, from CEOs and Supreme Court judges to marginalized and homeless women.   “Their stories formed the basis of what became a real interesting adventure for me personally”   He found cultural differences between the women, but says that at a psychological level, the similarities are substantially greater than the differences.  Kevin states that despite whatever culture a daughter is born into, the human needs are universal in that daughters crave the attention and acceptance of their parents.   “If the father is not there, his absence has the most profound impact on the life of his daughter”   The lessons are learned in the stories they share, according to Kevin.  This can be either by the heroic, or the horrific, nature of their fathers. The stories made Kevin aware of his interactions with his own daughters.   “Every time you do something with your daughter, it affirms in her that she is interesting and worthy of your time.”   The biggest obstacle that Kevin encountered was when one of his daughters went through a stage of deep, emotional turmoil.  The lesson he took from his book, to help him with this, was to never give up on her.   His favourite chapter involved his 6th grade girlfriend that he tracked down in Las Vegas. Originally, she wasn’t receptive to speaking with him about his book. When he approached her 9 months later, she explained that her father was abusive, and she realized that it did shape her life (she had barely finished high school, worked as a stripper, married five husbands and was addicted to drugs, as well as making two suicide attempts). The abuse from her father led to her own self-loathing and self-hatred. Years later, her father told her that she loved him, and she developed the most loving relationship with her father in her 50’s. Kevin titled this chapter of her book as “The Resurrection”, and her forgiveness “floored” him.   “The big lesson is that no matter what, you’re going to make mistakes as a father. Some of them will be profound, but failure is not falling down, failure is staying down.”   Kevin’s biggest advice to fathers is to have deep conversations with your daughters and listen, probe and try to understand them.   INTERVIEW LINK:   www.Kevin-Renner.com      

Christos Pittis – Show Notes     Christos Pittis is a social marketing extraordinaire. He offers the social marketing services that he provides through Fiverr. He’s also working on a start-up, which looks to expand and build a more scalable model of that website. He has two kids; a 7-year old daughter and a 5-year old son. Some of the activities that he enjoys most are walking, playing football and travelling.    Christos grew up in Cyprus, Greek and still maintains a residence there, as well as working in London, England.      With Fiverr, he started by offering $5 services and expanded to $10 and $20 ones. Now he’s looking to expand his sales funnel and is in the process of rebuilding his website and social media tools to include more content such as videos, downloadable material and podcasts.     He enjoys working from home because he loves his kids and wants to spend as much time as possible with them. The most important thing to Christos is maintaining a proper work/life balance. He works on Fiverr for 4 to 5 hours a day, and spends the rest of his time at home with his family.     “I think a Diversity Dad is someone who keeps the balance with family and work”     Christos says he’s not afraid to fail and to make mistakes, which separates him from a lot of other people.     “I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, but that’s the reason why I am here today”     He’s trying to learn new things everyday and develop different ways of social marketing. With his first Fiverr gig, he changed the post description 20 times, while checking the analytics and reports to see the results of each change.    “It’s important to stay in front of the technology and the trends”     The one thing that excites him the most about being a dad is teaching his kids what he knows. Christos has his daughter watch him whenever he creates an Instagram photo. It not only shows his kids how to use technology, but also allows them to spend time together.     He’s most proud of his children doing well in school and helping other kids do the same.    His biggest obstacle has been working too much and having multiple jobs, although he is trying his best to avoid this and spend lots of quality time with his wife and kids.     His one piece of advice to fathers is to have your kids understand the purpose of life and for them to set high goals for their lives. He wants his own kids to be good people, help others and to give love.     INTERVIEW LINKS:     www.ChristosPittis.com    @CPittis (Twitter) 

Hogan Hilling –Show Notes Hogan Hilling is a father of three and a nationally recognized author who has published 8 books regarding fatherhood. This has led him to create the “Dadly Series.” Hogan was also invited to the Oprah Winfrey Show to talk about being an at-home dad with his disabled son. He is also creating the “Dadly Rally” which gathers dads to talk about fatherhood. Hogan believes he is a Diversity Dad because of a number of reasons. His single mother raised him, after his parents divorced when he was two years old. He moved from Brazil to the Netherlands with his mom and brother, and reunited with his own father after 27 years of separation. Hogan is a dad of a child with special needs, Wesley, and went through a divorce after 25 years of marriage. As a father advocate, he says he has worked with almost every type of father there is. “I’ve had a wealth of experience and a wealth of supportive dads in my social circle” Hogan believes the biggest challenge he has had is fighting the stigma that our culture has created about men being inept, irresponsible and incompetent parents. He’s had financial struggles due to the large medical bills for his son, as well as the emotional challenge faced when people didn’t see his son as a human being. Hogan says his son has taught him a lot about life.   “Embrace the special gift your child has, and support the passion that they have for the life that they want to live”   He believes the community embraced him because of his attitude towards Wesley.   ”I asked for them to embrace him not because they had to, but because they wanted to being mindful about spending time with all of his kids is the one thing that he is most excited about making every second and minute I spent with my kids count.’   “Hogan says he looks at fatherhood through the eyes of his children.”   “That’s the part of being mindful; nothing else matters. One of the things I feel best about as a father, is on my deathbed, I’ll never say that I wish I spent more time with my kids.” Appearing on Oprah was one of his proudest moments because he got the opportunity to share his parent experience with others. Hogan never dreamt of being an author, but says it just fell in his lap. Every day he would write in his journal about a happy moment, or something he learned from his kids. Someone suggested he turn his writings into a book. He believes that parents unfortunately tend to focus on the negative aspects of being a parent, because they feel that without drama, they’re not normal.   “People are so engrossed in the challenges of raising a child, and not looking at the joys.”   “His one piece of advice is that people set their ego aside, and ask for help from others dads.”   “If you’d like a father-friendly environment, act like a friendly father, especially to other dads.”   The Dadly Rally is debuting in Marc 2016 (Los Angeles), but they Hogan and his partners want to go nationwide within 5 years (see INTERVIEW LINKS). The people involved want to leave a better parenting legacy for kids.   INTERVIEW LINKS   www.DadlyRally.com   Hogan@DadlyRally.com (Email)     Appearing on Oprah was one of his proudest moments because he got the opportunity to share his parent experience with others. Hogan never dreamt of being an author, but says it just Dz fell in his lap. dz Every day he would write in his journal about a happy moment, or something he learned from his kids. Someone suggested he turn his writings into a book. He believes that parents unfortunately tend to focus on the negative aspects of be ing a parent, because they feel that without drama, they ’ re not Dz normal. dz Dz People are so engrossed in the challenges of raising a child, and not lookin g at the joys dz His one piece of advice is that people set their ego aside, and ask for help f rom others dads. Dz If you ’ d like a father-friendly environment, act like a friendly father, especially to other dads dz The Dadly Rally is debuting in Marc 2016 (Los Angeles), but they Hogan and his partners want to go nationwide within 5 years (see INTERVIEW LINKS). The people involved want to leave a better parenting legacy for kids. INTERVIEW LINKS www.DadlyRally.com Hogan@DadlyRally.com (email)

Steve Rodgers –Show Notes   Steve Rodgers is a consultant, business and lifestyle coach, as well as an author. He has his own academy, the “Alchemy Advisors”, which trains and helps businesses thrive. He loves yoga, Kung Fu, self-improvement and exploring new things. Steve has been married 25 years and has two children. Steve was an executive in a real estate company for many years. For the last 5 years, he ran his own real estate business in San Diego, with 400 agents and 8 offices. He made a life change last year after his wife had a major health crisis during a surgery. As well, he found he was losing his passion for the real estate industry, and in the last year has re-invented himself both in terms of business, and his health.   “I’m taking my skills and background, utilizing them in a new way for entrepreneurs. I’m excited about this new path I’m on.”   Steve’s wife had two children from her previous marriage, and he believes being their step dad has made him a Diversity Dad. He shares that they found a way to blend together, despite the different dynamics. Within the first 5 to 10 minutes of meeting his wife, he knew he was going to marry her and felt they had a “soul connection.”   “He believes that being part of someone else growing, and watching them evolve, is the most important piece of being a dad.”   “Realize you’re on a journey with someone, besides just your spouse.”   “Moments that stand out for him include his son winning a global Internet contest at the age of 16, and his daughter getting married and being able to walk her down the aisle.”   “Even though I’m not their biological dad, they have grown to look at me as their Dad.”    “The biggest obstacle for Steve and his kids were navigating the teenage years.”   When kids are spreading their wings and testing boundaries, that’s always a really challenging time.   Steve feels that kids need discipline, but you also have to give them great memories that don’t just involve money (camping trips, taking them to the movies, etc.)There were times that the children reminded Steve that he wasn’t their real dad, but he didn’t take it personally.   His one piece of advice to Diversity Dads is to lead by example, no matter what age the kids are.   “They really watch what you do, not what you say. Set that example yourself and live that life yourself.”   Steve’s new book, “Lead to Gold: An Entrepreneur’s Journey through Transition and Transformation is launching in early 2016.   INTERVIEW LINKS www.SteveRodgersBlog.com www.TheAlchemyAdvisors.com  

Mashup Episode – Show Notes   In this episode of Diversity Dad, Jama’l takes excerpts from past episodes of 2015, sharing quotes from his guests and adding his own insights to help listeners be the best they can be, in fatherhood and life.    Bolaji O., is the CEO of Bravepreneur Parents Academy. He shares with listeners the wisdom of Steve Jobs, where he explains that by looking forward, it’s very difficult to know the stepping stones to your destination. However, by looking backwards at the events and experiences in your life, you’re able to see how everything that has happened actually "connects the dots" and gets you to where you are presently, and are heading.   Jay Forte of the Greatness Zone stresses the importance of being aware of who you are. He says that it’s a requirement for all of us to get comfortable with this and recommends that we created a "personal board of directors" ;people who care and love you – period.   Michael Anthony Duncan pulls a lesson from The Cosby Show, and talks about an episode where Bill Cosby helps a new dad. To do so, he tells the new father "whatever you do, you’re going to be a hero to your kid." This serves as a reminder to do your best, at all times, and don’t worry if you’re not perfect.   Cedric Hameed says his biggest obstacle as a dad is wondering if he could actually do it or not. He says that not having enough examples of strong fatherhood, and information, gave him a feeling of security that he had to overcome.

Malik Jones – Show Notes Malik Jones is a freelance artist, art instructor and devoted father of two wonderful children, ages 9 and 6. He currently resides in Philadelphia, Pa. Malik has a degree in social work and has been employed in the mental health field for over 13 years. Art has always been a passion of his, and he has dove deeper into it as it allows him to be more in tune as a father and spend more time with his kids. He’s currently working on creating an after school program and summer camp, and his ultimate goal is to open an arts school.   He says that the public school system in his city is going through a lot of turmoil, with art being subject to program cuts.   “One of the common components of a good school is a balance of education and arts”   Malik feels so strongly about this that he holds a workshop at the local recreation center every Tuesday and Thursday.   “Art gave me an incentive to go to school”   Malik loves being a father and says it’s the best thing that he has experienced in his life. He’s always looking for better ways to be a dad, and improve his kids life (by teaching them poems, about culture, etc.) which he says makes him a Diversity Dad.   He grew up on welfare with his siblings and single mother. His peers were selling drugs and committing robberies. He realized it wasn’t for him and he had art and football to keep him out of trouble.   “I was able to break away from all that and see a broader frame of life”   Malik became a social worker because it was the only thing in college that he connected with.  As a child, he knew what it was like for social workers to come into the home, and he was familiar with counselling, as he had attended anger management sessions.   Malik became a father figure for his younger brothers, by teaching his younger brothers football skills and other life lessons. This paid off when two of them received full scholarships to play the sport. One of his brother’s currently plays professionally in the NFL, with the Cleveland Browns.   He has his kids at least once a month, as they live with their mother (Malik’s ex) in Pittsburgh. He also has them on alternate holidays, as well as for two months during the summer.   When with his children, Malik is very hands on and instils values in them.   “Our relationship is awesome. It came out of fear of losing them.”   “I just made sure that in the time I had them, I did the best job as a parent that I could possibly do”   As much as he hated it at the time, it was the best move for them to live with their mother as he said it as a better environment.   His proudest moment of being a dad is the one that he realized he was really a father. He’s proud when he sees his kids following the rules they agreed upon and self-disciplining themselves. When this happens, he says he knows he did something right in raising them, and he’s constantly working to be an even better father.   Malik embraces the challenges that come he way, and he says the biggest obstacle he faced came during the court battle with this ex.   “It was very daunting and difficult, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It made me a better man and a better person.”   His one piece of advice for parents is to “just be there”, because if you do, your kids will never forget.   INTERVIEW LINKS: Malikjones79@gmail.com @medanmalik (Instagram)

Troy Miles–Show Notes    Troy Miles is an artist, speaker, basketball trainer and author of "The Virtual Game of Basketball", which highlights the martial arts of basketball. He considers himself as a "beyond profiteer", means he gives priceless contributions to people, places and things. Troy’s passion lives in continuous quality improvements and cooking, and he’s the proud father of two young men.   Troy considers basketball to a "martial art", due to the math, physics and fundamentals of the game itself.   "The mission is to be machine-like across all your skill sets; your technical, application and focus factors.   Troy came up with this concept while recovering from an injured Achilles tendon and coaching basketball to kids. It was then that he learned how powerful the strategy of movement actually was.   "I saw myself as a highly physical person before my injury, but now I’m more of a net-physical person, which means your prowess is now based on net outcomes. It’s all about being the best player, without being the most physical.     "The most powerful aspect of the virtual game is the programming, or skill acquisition, aspect. Troy considers this the "brain game".   Mastering this can help people in any area of their lives. Being a father of two bi-racial children is what Troy says makes him a Diversity Dad.     "It takes a certain type of social dexterity to make it work"   When his boys were 9 and 7, Troy and his wife separated, and came up with a very uncommon co-parenting plan of one-week on, and one-week off, with the kids. He says that being away from his children for a week at a time was the tough of co-parenting, although when they were together it gave him the opportunity to try different things such as cooking and reading them stories.     "It forced me into a higher expression of myself as a parent. I wouldn’t trade it for the world."   Discovering his children’s personalities, likes, dislikes and fears were the most exciting thing about being a dad to Troy.     "The discovery starts immediately, and it just never stops; I’m looking forward to the next stages".   His proudest moment was when he realized he had raised good people. Troy’s biggest obstacle was the separation with his wife. Along with the boys, who were 12 and 10 at the time, she relocated to San Diego for over a year.     "There were a lot of tears on my pillow. That was just tough. It didn’t break the connection or bond though, it just put space in it all.     "He advises parents to encourage their kids to seek and find their passions, and help them to identify them if needed."   I really believe every person has some special skill set. The key is to be able to discover it.     "Both of his kids have found their passions, one in music (see Interview Links) and the other in business and wealth building.   INTERVIEW LINKS: www.StraightOutTheCD.com www.VirtualGameOfBasketball.com www.Facebook.com/VirtualPlayer www.Facebook.com/TroyMilesArt www.SeaOfMercury.com (Troy’s son’s band) www.XavierMilesMusic.com  

Jim Palmer – Show Notes (Diversity Dad)   Jim Palmer is an entrepreneur, speaker and coach. He is the founder of Dream Biz Academy and Dream Business Coaching and Mastermind Program. He’s also the host of Stick Like Glue Radio, a weekly podcast based on Jim’s unique brand of smart marketing and business building strategies. He’s internationally known to be "The Newsletter Guru"and creator of No Hassle Newsletters, the ultimate "done-for-you "newsletter-marketing program.   Jim just celebrated 14 years as an entrepreneur, and it was about 6 years ago that he transitioned to the online world. Before he started his businesses, he was unemployed for about 15 months. Around this time, he was also diagnosed with cancer.     "With clarity of hindsight, I call that my season of crisis"   Certain benefits came with this period of unemployment, as his three kids learned lessons from this time.     "They knew that if they wanted something, they had to earn money for it; it’s a life lesson that’s stuck with them for a long time."   When a person loses a job, particularly a man, Jim says they lose a piece of their identity.     "When you’re unemployed, it really wreaks havoc on your self esteem"   One of Jim’s children is now an entrepreneur.   "They watch how you bounce back and how you handle things"   Faith had helped Jim recovery from his season of crisis.   "I really got on my knees and begged for guidance. I asked what I was suppose to do with my life."   His wife encouraged him to be a support group for people that were unemployed, if not to help himself, to encourage others. He went and continued going after he started his business, to pay it back.   "We’re here to help serve each other, that’s what entrepreneurship is. You’re in business to serve people"

Rodney Kellum – Show Notes  (Diversity Dad)   Rodney Kellum is a former workaholic turned fatherpreneur. He’s focused on helping parents start and automate their business for the purpose of helping them become more present and engaging with their children. Rodney also loves spending quality time with his family, as well as occasionally playing pickup basketball on the weekends.   Rodney was raised to believe a man should go to work and provide for his family, almost dying at the job. He learned this from his hard working father and grandfather. When he became a father himself, he decided to do all it took as well, which actually was his detriment.   “That way to work was wrong; the idea you have to go to work at a place all day and your kids get one percent of your time is no longer necessary”   It took some life altering moments and threatening situations for Rodney to change this thinking on “work”.   “In reality, I wasn’t doing what was best for my family”   In 2008, he achieved what he thought was his dream job, by becoming a video editor. The position was very demanding, but he says the accomplishment blinding him to what was really going on. One day, he couldn’t stand and had severe chest pains, and discovered his left artery was closing.   “If I were to have died at that point, I would have left my family with literally nothing. My son would have known me as a hard worker, and that would be it.”   Around that time, while watching his son in the evening, he was asked to go into work to do a task that could be done from home, online. Rodney refused as was let go the next day.   “It showed me I could choose my son”   Rodney feels that the most exciting thing about being a dad is getting to be part of someone’s life forever, and to guide them to be the type of person that God wants them to be.   “(Being a father) almost allows you to have a second childhood through their eyes”   “Everyday is exciting because you don’t know what’s going to happen”   When he first held his son at the hospital, he made a promise that he would always be there, always love him and do whatever it takes to provide the best life possible.   Rodney feels the biggest obstacle he had to overcome in becoming a dad was his own mindset.  He had to experience those multiple dramatic events in his life to make the decision to change the way he thought.   “When we become providers for our family, it’s hard to open up to another way of doing things”   “Until you get to the point where you decide you want to change, any other step you make doesn’t matter. Once things get uncomfortable, you’re going to go back to your safe zone.   He recommends that fathers look at the starting line, not the finish line. Start with the decision, then make one small step at a time to reach your goal.   Rodney’s advice to Diversity Dads: “Choose everyday to be present and engaged. If you lived and parented every day like it would be your last, how would you do things differently? Do that. You are your son’s example of manhood. Even though you think he’s not paying attention, as he grows older, the things he saw you do or not do, are going to be the things he does or doesn’t do…”   INTERVIEW LINKS: www.Fatherpreneurship.com (blog, articles & resources) @Fatherpreneur (Twitter) Fatherpreneur@Gmail.com (email)

Jay Forte – Show Notes (Diversity Dad)   Jay Forte is a motivational speaker and certified workplace and life coach. He hosts a podcast for parents called "Get Your Kids Ready For Life". He helps parents learn how to guide, support and coach their kids so they can discover, develop and live who they really are.   Jay is also a gay man and a father of three children. He knows the values of being heard and respected, and is inspired to help every child feel valuable and important for whom they are. Jay is an avid writer, gardener and cook, residing in sunny Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Jay grew up in a white, middle class family, never thinking of himself becoming a diversity dad. He spent most of his life pretending not to be the gay kid in a big Italian family. He had three daughters and was married for 10 years before he had to be honest about his sexual orientation.   "I realized what it’s like when the world shuns you and points its finger at you."   He spent a number of years being an average parent before boldly stepping into who he was. When he did that, his parenting completely changed, along with his outlook on life.   "That’s why I do what I do. Everyone should feel valued and significant".   Jay considers himself a Diversity Dad, in that he is a gay dad trying to raise kids with a lot of expectations, and pressures about how to be what is considered a real dad.   "The diversity part of it is embracing who it is and what is unique and amazing about us."   "If life changes, just stay consistent to what you do, which is love your kids. Pretty soon, the world starts to catch up and allows you to be who you really are."   He reminds us that kids are a work in progress, not perfect, and there’s something remarkable in that.   "Our job is to help them figure out how they fit in today’s world."   His biggest realization is he had nothing to be ashamed of in regards to who he is.   "The ability to coach somebody into showing up big and discovering their purpose is what excites him most about being a dad."   "Deep in us, we’re so connected to our kids, and the wish for them to be successful, happy and responsible"   Jay’s proudest moment about being a dad include walking his two daughters down the aisle when they got married.   "It’s the moment where everyone focuses on you, and the work you’ve done, to get them ready to move on in life. There aren’t words for it."   "His biggest obstacle in being a dad has been in accepting his own identity."   "Your own voice is true; you should listen to it, trust it and follow it"   His advice to others is to be authentic, which opens up the opportunity for everything else to happen.   "If you play small, you short change yourself and you short change the world".   INTERVIEW LINKS: www.Ready4Life.me    Jay@TheGreatnessZone.com  (email)  

Bolaji O resides in North Carolina with his wife and two boys. He is a 7-time bestselling author and founder of Brave Little Heroes. Brave Little Heroes creates incredible hero adventures that help kids discover their inner-awesome. So they can LIVE EPIC, and CHANGE THE WORLD. With over 100,000 kids already reached, Bolaji is showing no signs of slowing down.  Check out the Bravepreneur Parents Academy movement that Bolaji O is has created: http://bravepreneur.com/ Follow Bolaji O on Facebook: Bolaji O Facebook Page

Jay Cerrone Smith is an author and owner of Paper Chase publications LLC. Through his journey of having a unique upbringing, it has created his books and given him the focus to be a great dad.  Here is Jay Cerrone Smith's recent book, Illegal life: A North Philadelphia Story. I highly recommend this book: www.paperchasepublications.com/shop/illegal-life-a-north-philadelphia-story/ Give us a Rating and Review

Matt Parri shares the story of him overcoming his health trials as a young boy and his daughter having to fight a similar battle since birth. His family history of health weighs on his mind, but he will continue to live life to the fullest. 

With John's mom mutually separating from his dad and having to work multiple jobs just to make ends meat, John had to grow up pretty fast. He learn at a young age that life's ups and downs will make you a better person in the end. John continues to use the lessons of hardships that he went through to teach his children the meaning of hard work. 

Shakara Banks shares his childhood experience of going back and forth between living with his parents. He is now a dad to his two young daughters and speaks about their different likes and dislikes of how he handles different situations with them as a parent.  

Mike Jones has been associated with the game of basketball many years, so you would expect him to be a "tough as nails" guy, right? That's so far from the truth. Knowing Mike for many years, he is a generous and kind human being. In this episode he opens up about his religious journey that he has lead his family on and speaks on the struggles of keeping a positive attitude as a father. 

Dr. Robertson-Howell's story is one of triumph and of living out a dream of always becoming a dad. In his story he shares lessons of hope and be adaptive to your children's needs.

This is the sixth episode of the Diversity Dad podcast that features Jermaine Fox. Fox is a Ohio native and a father of a 4 year boy named Jaiden. What I liked so much about this interview is the honesty of Jermaine talking about two hard subject that inter twine, drugs and parenting.

This is the sixth episode to the Diversity Dad Podcast. Aaron Murray is an ex-college superstar at the Eastern Kentucky University. He uses the lesson that he's learned in sports to put towards his fatherhood...hard work...integrity...and teamwork.

Angelo Goodwin is a young entrepreneur that has his hands in many projects. Angelo is the creator of the MyYoungStartUp (Entrepreneurs group). Throughout his life, he has been through the death of his mother and played a "father like role" in the lives of his younger sister and brother. Now as a dad, he cherishes the family life even more than he has in the past. Angelo's Goodwin's Facebook group - MyYoungStartUp (Entrepreneurs Group) MyYoungStartUp (Entrepreneurs Group)