EP134: The Company Of Dads – Holiday Recap

Paul Sullivan’s final thoughts on 2024

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

As we wrap up 2024, Paul reflects on the progress The Company Of Dads has seen - highlighting a few key experiences as a Lead Dad both personally and professionally. He and Skip Cherryholmes discuss what they look forward to in the coming year, and the ultimate goal of finding more ways to bring dads together in 2025. Here’s to another great year, and the ever-growing community of Lead Dads across the world!

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Transcript

00;00;06;20 - 00;00;20;01
Skip Cherryholmes
Well. Hello everybody, and welcome to the Company of Dads podcast. I am Skip Cherryholmes, and after a whole lot of episodes, we're going to do something just a little bit different. We're going to interview Paul.

00;00;20;04 - 00;00;24;02
Paul Sullivan
You're doing my line. That's what I do. Well, I usually start it off.

00;00;24;07 - 00;00;45;16
Skip Cherryholmes
I've heard quite a few of these. I know how this works. No, I, I think that it'd be great to to sit down, and, I mean, you you talk to these people over and over and over again and and the the the stuff that, that we've been putting together with the podcast has been great, but nobody really talks to you.

00;00;45;17 - 00;00;51;00
Skip Cherryholmes
Asks you questions. And, I think it'd be a great, great time right here.

00;00;51;02 - 00;00;59;25
Paul Sullivan
Skip this. This is like an only child to dream. Like you're feeling like, what do you think? Like, oh, my goodness, I love this. All right, let's let's do it. You know. So our sort of holiday special here.

00;00;59;26 - 00;01;24;01
Skip Cherryholmes
Yeah absolutely. So first question 2024 coming to a wrap. What do you think. Well first of all, how do you feel about the year overall as the leader of the company of dads and as a dad yourself? Wow.

00;01;24;03 - 00;01;41;02
Paul Sullivan
I guess I'll ask that you answer like, as a dad myself. I think my, my daughters have really embraced it. My wife is really embraced it. It's just, you know, who I am now. I figured out this this care shift that I work, you know, sort of 930 to 330 every day when everybody else is working.

00;01;41;02 - 00;01;57;08
Paul Sullivan
And then finishing up the other stuff, at night, early in the morning. So that's gone. Well, as a leader in the company of dads, this is probably, you know, I'm glad I can say this was probably been, like, the most, like, validating year we've, we've had so far. We had a year long partnership for Bright Horizons.

00;01;57;08 - 00;02;20;06
Paul Sullivan
We did some, one off stuff with, Bank of Montreal, Deloitte Teladoc's, some other companies. I got to speak at Sarah Mount's, annual conference for the top 100 companies for working parents. We continue to have our online events. We had a great in-person event. We have a big in-person event, that only you and I know about that'll be out after this.

00;02;20;06 - 00;02;42;24
Paul Sullivan
This airs. That's happening tomorrow. I can't talk about that yet. So in terms of, like, bringing more dad into this, more lead dads and, like, our ultimate goal, like to normalize the role of men as lead dads and help families fulfill their full potential. Like, we've taken huge steps, toward that. If, you know, the first year we took one step, the second year maybe we took a step and a half.

00;02;42;27 - 00;02;54;11
Paul Sullivan
This year, I feel like we've taken, you know, five, six, seven steps. So it's way different spot, at the end of the year than I was at the beginning of the year. So, all in all, thrilled.

00;02;54;14 - 00;03;16;17
Skip Cherryholmes
Awesome. Yeah. It's one of the the things that is really cool about when you're doing something like this, you love to see the support from people you know and people you're connected to, but it's even cooler to see people you don't know get involved when you start seeing, emails and, you know, followers on social media and all that.

00;03;16;18 - 00;03;46;18
Skip Cherryholmes
But, you know, like, earlier, you got an email from somebody who made a purchase on the, on the website, and it was somebody you'd never, never know, never heard of. It's a, it's a new, you know, so the reach is growing constantly. And, that's so exciting to to see that part where, where dads are seeing other dads speak about, you know, what they go through and how, you know, in some, some cases it's accepted, some cases it's not.

00;03;46;18 - 00;04;08;10
Skip Cherryholmes
But really just to let dads know that they're not alone in these situations. And the data showing that dads are spending more time at home and they're spending more time committing to their family, even if, you know, with remote work and all this different stuff, it's it's quite remarkable. So it has to be it has to feel validating to to feel like you're making that reach.

00;04;08;10 - 00;04;28;19
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. I mean, I think one of my favorite things is when I get these emails and I get them it at least, you know, once week, if not more often from somebody I don't know, like you said, to saying, like I've been following what you're doing. I'm glad you're doing it. This is meaningful and I know how hard it is for somebody to write an email like that when it's positive, because it's everyone knows who's listening to this podcast.

00;04;28;19 - 00;04;44;14
Paul Sullivan
I'm like, as a journalist for 20 years, it's really easy for people to write negative emails and say, hey, you really are awful, and this is really bad. People love to do that. I used to say, like, you know, we get these emails of the times like, hey, stupid, you're you ready for this stupid thing from Stupid Valley?

00;04;44;14 - 00;05;08;19
Paul Sullivan
Like, oh, you know, uncle Jerry, so good to hear from you now. Like, whereas, like, now, like when people actually reach out and it's positive and they want to say like this is having an impact that is, is super meaningful. And then when people, you know, we had an online meetup, a couple weeks ago and it we usually cap these at 20 and we were right up at our cap, but only one of the people, maybe two of the people who were there did, I know, did I?

00;05;08;19 - 00;05;24;17
Paul Sullivan
And I knew them because they'd been at previous meetups. It wasn't like I they were my neighbor. And here there's all these people were new and it was exciting and exhilarating, and that wasn't happening. You know, two and a half years ago, right when I just had this idea and super validating.

00;05;24;20 - 00;05;57;13
Skip Cherryholmes
Yeah. What would you say that you think would be considered the, the, the best landmark, as you know, from from a company of that standpoint? I actually asked this both ways company that standpoint and fatherhood standpoint. Do you have, landmark of 2024 or an event or something that that you achieved or that happened, in your sphere that you would just say, you know, this this had me riding high.

00;05;57;14 - 00;06;05;08
Skip Cherryholmes
You know, I was just I was, you know, felt felt that, effect.

00;06;05;11 - 00;06;08;22
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I guess, I mean.

00;06;08;24 - 00;06;36;03
Paul Sullivan
You know, if you have an idea and you internally motivate it, but external validation still feels great. So in the fall, when the Wall Street Journal wrote a front page story and they talked a bunch of our lead dads for the company dads, and they, they quote at me as, as the expert in the piece and they included of the silly, you know, company of dads photo of me with a in a sport coat on an adventure and then crazy flower printed shorts.

00;06;36;03 - 00;06;47;21
Skip Cherryholmes
I was so tempted to show up at the airport when you picked me up, wearing a sport coat and a pair of swim trunks, but I mean, it was what, like, yeah, 37 degrees. When you pick me up, it.

00;06;47;21 - 00;06;59;25
Paul Sullivan
Would have been perfect because it until, you know, yesterday Skip and I had never met in person had only been on zoom. And so for all I know, the entire time on all the zoom calls you had on a pair of swim trunks, and I just didn't know who would.

00;06;59;27 - 00;07;08;14
Skip Cherryholmes
I mean, I might have, you know, actually, I would neither confirm nor deny that that event occurring. But anyway.

00;07;08;14 - 00;07;23;10
Paul Sullivan
No, I mean, that was great because like, like this is our bootstrap. Like, we don't have a PR company. There's no PR agency going out and trying to and pitching us to people. So that Wall Street Journal reporter, you know, found what we're doing was interested in it and wanted to sort of elevate it, to more people.

00;07;23;10 - 00;07;36;29
Paul Sullivan
And what did that do that brought more dads to the community? Then I got more guys reaching out to me saying, hey, I read about that. That's awesome. That's what I'm doing. I'm glad there's something out there like this. Or, you know, we're talking about this yesterday. You know, a guy saying, you know, I felt so alone.

00;07;37;01 - 00;07;56;18
Paul Sullivan
And now I know there's a group like this because, you know, our data is 25 million men in the US are the dads. It could be the dads. It's a third of all fathers. But that means two thirds are not right. And so, like, you know, it's a big group, but you may live in a community where there could be lead dads, and you don't really know that early dads because they're not coming out and saying, hey, this is what I'm doing.

00;07;56;18 - 00;08;04;20
Paul Sullivan
There's no way for them to get together. So an article like that, that then, you know, brought more, you know, the dad to the company dads that that was a high watermark.

00;08;04;20 - 00;08;41;21
Skip Cherryholmes
I was I was looking at a article earlier today and I was reading through was it was a bunch of submissions that dads had put in about things that maybe be misconstrued about dads or stereotypes about dads and, and each of the little quotes that were there had a name next to it. And then there was one quote, a single quote that was about the, the idea, you know, the, the, the myth stereotype that dads aren't willing to make career changes for their family, or to take a stronger role in their family, be lead dads, essentially.

00;08;41;23 - 00;08;58;02
Skip Cherryholmes
Yeah. But it was anonymous. Yeah, because it's something that they're just not wanting to talk about. The and I know you have your own experiences that even if you're in that position, it's not something that that you feel comfortable stepping out into letting people know that's where you're at.

00;08;58;07 - 00;09;20;08
Paul Sullivan
You know, we have I think we've, we've I don't know about, you know, by the end of the year, we will have done you know, 40 and at 48, 49, 50 maybe, you know, lead dads the week there's this weekly feature we have, you just highlight a guy who's a super involved father. And it's wonderful that pretty much every week we have one week be down is because we took a week off to the break when I vacation like normal people do.

00;09;20;10 - 00;09;35;09
Paul Sullivan
But the ones that I remember and you know, I don't know what this says about me, but the ones that I remember are the two where I talk to people and then afterwards they change their mind. You know, I do. I did that run. They didn't want it to run. They wanted to be anonymous. They didn't want to be known.

00;09;35;09 - 00;09;54;17
Paul Sullivan
And I, I joke with them. I was like, you know, you didn't tell me about, like, throwing a puppy into the pond like you talked to me about, like, all really good stuff. And the reason was all the same, I don't know what this is going to do for my career. All of this to for me. And this is, you know, we had data from this pre-COVID that, you know, men who wanted to be super involved, fathers want to be lead dads.

00;09;54;17 - 00;10;16;06
Paul Sullivan
They were seen as not committed to their jobs. And look, you know, working moms have have been penalized for decades, you know, over this. But, you know, we know from a research that, you know, two things can be true at the same time, like supporting lead dads in their role is also a way to support working moms and ultimately to support, you know, families.

00;10;16;06 - 00;10;23;22
Paul Sullivan
And so to get to that, those guys don't ever say like, hey, I don't want to, you know, come out and be named in this.

00;10;23;24 - 00;10;44;26
Skip Cherryholmes
Yeah, yeah. So second part of that question was personal. Do you have any anything from 2024 personally or as a father or just a moment of pride or a moment of, of enjoyment, excitement that you just you reflect on? You're like, this was a a highlight of my year.

00;10;44;29 - 00;11;08;24
Paul Sullivan
I have lots of them, you know, but they all sound like kind of kind of braggy, like things that my, my kids did. I mean, my favorite moment of every year always, you know, I've got three daughters, as everyone knows, like when I have time, which is one of them, and we go somewhere and then we really talk, we open up and, and my oldest daughter is 15 and dads will say like, oh man, you've got a teenager.

00;11;08;24 - 00;11;29;07
Paul Sullivan
And I said, it's not like that at all. It's it's really great. And, you know, we talk through things and we're open about things. And that to me, you know, every single year that's always going to be the highlight. It's not going to be, you know, child one you know, earn this prize or child two, you know, one that, you know, those are like outward markers of success.

00;11;29;07 - 00;11;47;10
Paul Sullivan
It's like seeing like, okay, I'm having great conversations, you know, with my kids and my middle daughter is great. She'll always say, hey, dad, I think that the dad over there, I think there's a there's going to be dad in the white, like, you know, hey, dad, is that a spotted rhinoceros over there? And. Exactly. Dad, I think you're right that to me, dad.

00;11;47;10 - 00;11;48;01
Paul Sullivan
And so, like.

00;11;48;04 - 00;11;49;01
Skip Cherryholmes
Search chip for Pokemon.

00;11;49;04 - 00;12;02;29
Paul Sullivan
That's right. Like they're they're they she is in tune and like, forever trying to help. Like, maybe you want to talk to this person. Like, at one point you said, you know, maybe you want to talk to Dax Shepard, to Dax Shepard. If you're listening, my daughter like me to talk to you. I think I would like to talk to him, but I don't.

00;12;03;02 - 00;12;06;03
Paul Sullivan
He may be kind of busy right now. I don't know how I get to.

00;12;06;05 - 00;12;25;21
Skip Cherryholmes
Anybody who sees this. Just tag Dax Shepard straight up to say this guy, he his his daughter wants to talk to you. He wants to talk. We got to make it happen. I know, your your kids are a little bit older than mine, but that is, you know, similar for me, too. It's like my my kids make me proud with things that they do all the time.

00;12;25;23 - 00;12;49;11
Skip Cherryholmes
But my proudest moments are like those moments where where they show their depth. And it's like, my son will just come up and ask me a question that in, in a lot of ways will blow my mind because it's like I start, I realize how much he's growing up and how he's noticing things and stuff, but the fact that he feels so comfortable to just come up, hey, let's talk about whatever.

00;12;49;13 - 00;13;10;09
Skip Cherryholmes
And, and and it's something sometimes it's something that matters to me, and sometimes it's something that doesn't matter to me at all. But the fact that he sees me as that person, he wants to come talk to about it, and my daughter as well, those are those are the proudest moments. And, they ride high over any kind of accolade or achievement that they could.

00;13;10;11 - 00;13;42;02
Skip Cherryholmes
They have, but I'm not. It's not that I'm not proud of that stuff. Yeah, but it's the personal development, you know, all that stuff that just means so much. 2025 on the horizon. Yeah, lots of stuff coming. A lot of momentum from 2024 riding into 2025. What do you see as a goal for for a company, for the company of dads, but also for any dads listening?

00;13;42;02 - 00;13;48;26
Skip Cherryholmes
What do you think would be a great goal for dads listening to set for the year 2025?

00;13;49;01 - 00;14;13;07
Paul Sullivan
Well, for dads themselves, for them to set, I would, you know, a great goal would be for them to sort of, you know, if their dads who are or who are working full time or part time, you know, a great goal would be for them to talk honestly about being a father at work. You know, if you're your, you know, your office place, employment, if they have a group for parents, you know, nine times out of ten, those groups are filled 100% with women.

00;14;13;07 - 00;14;32;02
Paul Sullivan
Go, go join those groups. You know, put yourself out there and not you're not a man. You're you're a father. You're obviously a man of your father, and you're also a parent and like, come together like that. And that type of allyship is so positive for people in general. But you also, you just learn so much from each other.

00;14;32;02 - 00;14;48;26
Paul Sullivan
And you realize, as we've realized over the past almost three years, that, you know, we're all in this together. And, you know, moms and dads can just kind of support themselves in that parenting, support each other in that parenting journey that makes such a huge difference is what's the opposite of that? What? The opposite of that. Yeah.

00;14;48;28 - 00;15;06;06
Paul Sullivan
These are the stereotypes that you brought up earlier. People have, assumptions that, you know, largely aren't true. Oh, you know, dads, they only do this in this in this or oh, I can't do this because, you know, that's something that only moms do. And like, that's not true. Like, there are only two things that moms can do.

00;15;06;08 - 00;15;33;27
Paul Sullivan
The dads can't do. They can carry a child for nine months and give birth. And number two, if they so choose, they can breastfeed. Other than that, all the care, all the time together, all the conversations, any either parent can do that. And so I love you know, go for dads would just be to lean in and realize that, you know, you're not you're going to get so much more out of it than you're going to put into it, because you're going to have other parents who understand what you're going through and you're going to have support.

00;15;33;27 - 00;15;42;13
Paul Sullivan
You're going to realize that the crazy stuff that you think, oh my goodness, I'm the only person who's going through this. You 100%, not the only person going through this awesome.

00;15;42;15 - 00;16;09;08
Skip Cherryholmes
And, you know, company and dads just taking that the message to the people and and reaching out to to companies that it that you know maybe are have curiosity over how they can support working parents. Is you know, I know that's a that's been kind of a big mission, but it continues to be a mission is just trying to to help certain companies that are embracing this.

00;16;09;08 - 00;16;31;19
Skip Cherryholmes
And they make policy adjustments and they show a lot more support. And then there are some companies who who they say they support it. Right. But then as time goes on, then then it kind of shows that it they, they supported on paper and on in theory, but that they don't actually support it. And then some companies don't support it at all supporting.

00;16;31;19 - 00;16;49;18
Skip Cherryholmes
And but I by supporting it, I mean, you know, working fathers and working parents and caregiving equity and whatnot. I think that that's, that's like the 2025 goal is to just let's, let's see what kind of waves we can make.

00;16;49;21 - 00;17;15;07
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. I mean, it's a way for us to have I mean, the community is at the core of everything we do. But, you know, if we have 30 people, 40 people, 50 people at an event, that's awesome. But if I go and talk to a company and they're 600 people, you know, on the live stream, if there are a thousand people on the live stream, and then those people tell other people what we're doing, that helps to accelerate our mission to normalize early.

00;17;15;07 - 00;17;32;18
Paul Sullivan
Dad. And like you said, like some companies are still like, well, we're not going to do this. We don't want to get into it or we're focusing all our efforts on something else. And I tell them, like, this is not like buying your employees a ping pong table or, having, like a bar cart go around on Friday afternoon.

00;17;32;18 - 00;17;53;18
Paul Sullivan
This is something that is, it makes your company stronger. It keeps people from leaving. It saves you money because when people leave, you have to spend money, more money to to replace them. And you create this culture where people feel like, okay, this company really does, you know, believe what I'm doing. As I say, the what you can do for lead that you can do for working moms and you can do for caregivers in general.

00;17;53;23 - 00;18;09;17
Paul Sullivan
And somewhere in the upper 90 percentile of people will be a caregiver at some time in their life. So these small changes that companies can make and have a big impact on their workforce and their bottom line, and that's something that in 2025, we want to we had great success doing it this past year with some really great companies.

00;18;09;22 - 00;18;16;23
Paul Sullivan
We just want to keep driving that home and show that that this is actually a huge, you know, benefit to the company and to the employees.

00;18;16;26 - 00;18;24;12
Skip Cherryholmes
That's right. Wrapping it up. Any, anything you want to any words of wisdom you want to share with the wrap of the year or anybody you want to shout out to?

00;18;24;18 - 00;18;42;09
Paul Sullivan
No, I again, I'm, I'm just always like super grateful for all the people that I reach out to, that reach out to me. And then I say, you know, hey, can we just happen to happen to zoom and do a lead date of the week? And and they do it and they share and you know, when I can give them feedback and say, that's a great story.

00;18;42;09 - 00;18;58;02
Paul Sullivan
You know, it reminds me of this guy I talked to, you know, a year and a half ago. Or sometimes I love it when I talked to a guy from Kansas City, a couple of weeks ago and I said, oh, you should look up this other guy. He's also in Kansas City. He was a leader. And he did, and he reached out to him.

00;18;58;02 - 00;19;08;29
Paul Sullivan
And now they have a connection, as in in the dad and in Kansas City. So I guess the words of wisdom is, you know, if you think you're the dad, you know, reach out to the company of dads and join, join what we're trying to build here.

00;19;08;29 - 00;19;26;10
Skip Cherryholmes
That's right. Follow us on all of our social media platforms Facebook, Instagram. We have a Facebook group. LinkedIn. You can catch different dimensions of, what it is that our community is doing along with our newsletter. The dad that there is a weekly newsletter if you want, not a social person.

00;19;26;10 - 00;19;33;10
Paul Sullivan
Just once a week, every Sunday morning, 7:00 Am before hopefully your kids are up. You're having a cup of coffee. Just read the newsletter then.

00;19;33;10 - 00;19;40;08
Skip Cherryholmes
Yeah. And it's just going to grow from there. Paul, it's been a fantastic year and I'm looking forward to 2025.

00;19;40;12 - 00;19;42;04
Paul Sullivan
All right. Thank you Skip. And thank you.