Parenting Episodes

What happens when the conversations working dads avoid at home start affecting every other part of their lives? Mylena Sutton believes leadership is not something you turn on at work and leave behind at home. The way you handle conflict, stress, shame, communication, and emotional pressure follows you everywhere. For working dads trying to balance career demands, parenting, relationships, and personal identity, that truth can be uncomfortable, but necessary. This conversation explores how emot...

What if success is not about building generational wealth, but building generational habits? Jason VanDevere walked away from a future most people would never leave behind. Instead of taking over his family’s successful auto dealership business, he chose to build his own path through entrepreneurship, real estate investing, and coaching. Becoming a father changed how he thinks about ambition, work life balance, and what success is actually supposed to lead to. Jason shares how to: Define suc...

What happens when your life changes faster than you can process it? For Mike Weyandt, the shift into fatherhood came all at once. A long, uncertain adoption process suddenly turned into bringing home a newborn in a matter of weeks. At the same time, his career path was in flux, and shortly after, the world shut down. What followed was a season filled with constant change, new responsibilities, and very little time to step back and make sense of it all. Mike brings a rare combination of perspe...

What does it actually look like to rebuild your life after everything falls apart? Rob Capili has lived through it. Divorce, career pivots, identity shifts, and the long process of starting over while still showing up as a father. His path has never been linear. From tech to filmmaking to music to entrepreneurship, he has followed curiosity, taken risks, and learned the hard way what matters and what doesn’t. But some of his most important lessons didn't come from success. They came from failu...

What does it really mean to succeed as a dad when work, ambition, and identity are all pulling in different directions? Shaun Dawson, tech leader, father of two, and host of the Raising Men podcast, challenges the idea that success is defined by output alone. He shares a more grounded perspective on fatherhood, work life balance, and what working dads often get wrong when they focus too heavily on providing financially while overlooking emotional presence. Shaun shares how to: Redefine succes...

Why do so many working dads feel disconnected from their kids even when they are physically present? Modern fatherhood comes with pressures that did not exist a generation ago. Constant work demands, two-income households, packed schedules, and technology that never turns off have pushed many families into reactive mode. And when stress builds, connection is often the first thing to break. Dr. David Marcus, a clinical psychologist with over 40 years of experience working with families under st...

What if the key to balance is not working less, but working with intention? Alex Tuck runs a remote-first consulting firm from a farm in Vermont while raising four young kids with his wife. His approach is simple but disciplined: block the time, protect the priorities, and design work to fit life, not the other way around. From quarterly OKRs to daily timeboxing, Alex has built both a company and a family rhythm around clarity and structure. But beneath the systems is something deepe...

What happens when health scares, job loss, and family tragedy collide all at once? After having part of his lung removed, being laid off during the pandemic, and losing his father-in-law the same day he was discharged from the hospital, Tony Berardo was forced to confront a hard truth: work was taking up too much of the wrong space in his life. Instead of chasing security, status, and a bigger paycheck, Tony rebuilt his life around something far more valuable: time. Today, he’s the foun...

How do you communicate in a way that builds trust, connection, and confidence with your kids, your partner, and the people you work with every day? Danny Brassell has spent decades teaching, coaching, and speaking around the world about storytelling, reading, and communication. This conversation explores how communication is not about polish or performance, but about meeting people where they are and staying present in the moments that matter most. Danny shares how to: Use storytelling to bui...

Jon Merlin is a longtime designer who left agency life to start his own creative studio while raising two young daughters. Instead of letting work bleed into every hour, Jon drew a hard line around family time and rebuilt his business around clarity, intention, and values. This conversation explores what it really looks like to pursue entrepreneurship without losing presence at home, and how letting go of perfection can unlock both better work and better parenting. Jon shares how to: Protect ...

What does it actually take to feel grounded, confident, and present as a dad when anxiety is rising, expectations are shifting, and the world feels louder than ever? AJ Rich is a licensed marriage and family therapist, practice owner, and doctoral candidate who works almost exclusively with men. After nearly 20 years in corporate leadership, AJ transitioned into clinical work and now helps dads navigate identity, emotional intelligence, anxiety, and growth without losing themselves or their fam...

How do you rebuild your life when everything breaks at once and you still have kids who need you every minute of the day? After a devastating spinal injury and years of recovery, Paul Terrell became a stay at home dad who had to relearn how to walk, talk, type, and parent with new physical limitations. Later he returned to work and eventually became a top performing enterprise account executive in PropTech and FinTech. His story is one of grit, patience, perseverance, and a deep commitment to f...