EP144: Parenthood, Identity, & Creating Inclusive Parenting Spaces

Interview with David Morgenstern Founder and CEO of Gaddies

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

What does it mean to be a father in today’s world, especially when your identity doesn’t fit the traditional mold? David Morgenstern shares his fatherhood journey as a gay dad, discussing the challenges and triumphs of creating inclusive parenting spaces. He sheds light on his work as leading gender-inclusive initiatives at Nike, and his impact with his own clothing company - Gaddies. This powerful conversation explores the intersection of identity, fatherhood, and community support.

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Transcript

00;00;00;03 - 00;00;22;23
David Morgenstern
People want to celebrate joy and they want to celebrate people in their lives, but they don't always know how to do it. And that means that they can shy away from it sometimes. And so this is really thinking through how do you put that front and center and take a lot of what has already existed in the parenting world, but speak very specifically to a consumer or to a community that no one is talking to and doing it in an authentic way.

00;00;22;23 - 00;00;48;00
David Morgenstern
Right. So, you know, our tagline is for the dad in you, right? And so that's saying, hey, you have all these different parts of your identity, all these different intersectionality. And we're going to speak to to the dad in you, in addition to everything else that you have going on. Because when you become a dad, you don't stop being who you were previously.

00;00;48;03 - 00;01;17;20
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company Dads podcast. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan. We're focused on lead dads, working moms, and how small changes at home or work can have a big impact on their lives. Each episode promises to deliver actionable advice on some area of concern at home or at work. Short. Direct. Again. Actionable. Five questions. Five answers. Today, our guest, David Morgenstern, founder and CEO of Gattis, a clothing brand focused on gay fathers.

00;01;17;23 - 00;01;42;25
Paul Sullivan
It's inspired by his own experience as a father of a young son, and is rooted in his desire to celebrate gay dads. David knows a thing or two about building a brand. Having held global leadership roles at Nike. He's also led the sneaker giant pride employee resource group. David and his husband, Rafael live in Portland, Oregon, where he roots for the Cleveland Cavaliers, which doesn't make much sense, and we'll probably just skip talking about it today.

00;01;42;27 - 00;01;47;09
Paul Sullivan
Welcome, David. Today I'm great. Thanks for being here.

00;01;47;11 - 00;01;48;01
David Morgenstern
Thanks for having me.

00;01;48;04 - 00;02;08;27
Paul Sullivan
All right, I promise. You know, five questions, five answers. Yeah. This first one doesn't count as question one. Okay. Fun fact, but you start each day FaceTiming with your 100 year old grandfather. So, what did Bobby have to say today?

00;02;09;00 - 00;02;28;17
David Morgenstern
Today? Bobby wanted to know what Simon, my child, was eating for breakfast. I will say, once kiddo came into our lives, a lot of the calls. You're just sort of the vector to connect him with the great, the great grandchild. So you want to know what Simon was eating for breakfast? And if I had watched, the cats.

00;02;28;17 - 00;02;37;09
David Morgenstern
When? The other night. So, connecting back to your. Your point. He also did want to let me know that the heat in his apartment building is finally working again. So these are all very important.

00;02;37;13 - 00;02;38;23
Paul Sullivan
Where does Bobby live?

00;02;38;25 - 00;02;47;06
David Morgenstern
He's in Cleveland, Ohio. Still lives by himself in an independent apartment. And, is the joy of a lot of people's lives.

00;02;47;09 - 00;02;51;00
Paul Sullivan
Wow. What? Yeah. What? What did Bobby have for breakfast today?

00;02;51;03 - 00;03;05;26
David Morgenstern
So he says the trick to life is to have the massive heart attack in your late 70s, but survive it, and then get the new heart, and then just eat as much chocolate and salt as you want. He said, so those are the two. If anyone asks, he says, those are the keys to being 100.

00;03;05;28 - 00;03;07;14
Paul Sullivan
But these words of wisdom.

00;03;07;21 - 00;03;08;02
David Morgenstern
Yes.

00;03;08;06 - 00;03;30;28
Paul Sullivan
Love it. Yeah. All right. Dave. Question one. As you know better than most from your days at Nike, successful brands are about so much more than, selling stuff. So, Titus, what's the mission behind Gaddis? And why is this the moment for you to launch this brand?

00;03;31;01 - 00;03;52;21
David Morgenstern
Yeah, I think the the reality is that, you know, gay and queer dads have always existed, right? For as long as there have been parents. But we're in this special moment now where there's this opportunity to to really take that to the next level. And I think for me, becoming a parent and part of the community that you're building here is generally that, like parenting is very lonely, right?

00;03;52;21 - 00;04;16;25
David Morgenstern
And it can be especially been more lonely when you're a subset of that. So being a gay parent and saying, hey, where is community? Where, where role models, where can I connect with people? And sort of leveraging my, my background in business and the brand space and saying how could we create something that lets us be a signal, that lets us be a wink to those in the know and put some identity around it?

00;04;16;26 - 00;04;35;12
David Morgenstern
And I think a lot of that brand is rooted in acknowledging before 2024, before Portland, Oregon, this couldn't have existed. Right. So speaking to the fight that got us here, the fight that's still happening today, and the immense diversity and intentionality that exists across gay dads.

00;04;35;14 - 00;04;57;14
Paul Sullivan
I love it. When you have you distilled you know, Nike, of course, has the famous, you know, just do it. And it kind of inspires people for the sort of athlete, within even though most of us are not, you know, LeBron James. There you go. I give you a the former Cleveland Cavaliers guy there. When you think about the thing that distills, you know, this brand for you and why it's going to appeal to the gay dads.

00;04;57;14 - 00;05;09;00
Paul Sullivan
But also you know in a previous conversation we had you know people who may want to, you know, bio, you know, of the shower present when, when a baby comes around, what really distills it down to its, its essence?

00;05;09;02 - 00;05;24;21
David Morgenstern
Yeah, I think it's it's this notion of celebrating and invalidating. And I think in, you know, we were talking earlier to the point around gifting of people want to celebrate joy and they want to celebrate people in their lives, but they don't always know how to do it. And that means that they can shy away from it sometimes.

00;05;24;22 - 00;05;43;17
David Morgenstern
And so this is really thinking through how do you put that front and center and take a lot of what has already existed in the parenting world, but speak very specifically to a consumer or to a community that no one is talking to and doing it in an authentic way. Right. So, you know, our tagline is for the dad in you, right?

00;05;43;17 - 00;06;06;17
David Morgenstern
And so that's saying, hey, you have all these different parts of your identity, all these different intersectionality. And we're going to speak to to the dad in you, in addition to everything else that you have going on. Because when you become a dad, you don't stop being who you were previously. And that's definitely something that specifically, you know, in the gay and queer community is like, oh, if I become a parent, what do I lose?

00;06;06;17 - 00;06;27;16
David Morgenstern
And that that's not something that is unique to us, but because there haven't been role models or there haven't been generations of parents to learn from, that's certainly a question that you you hear a lot. And, when I did decide to do this, you know, there's not a lot of data on us, right? So you sort of have to go in and do a lot of primary qualitative and and quantitative as well.

00;06;27;16 - 00;06;46;25
David Morgenstern
And so probably talk to, you know, at this point like 150 dads around the country. And that's that's one of the pieces that they said is I didn't know who I was going to become because I didn't have something to see. And so I think the cool thing about this brand is being able to give younger generations visibility of, oh, hey, if I if I want to become a parent, I can do that.

00;06;46;25 - 00;07;09;02
David Morgenstern
And this is what the act of parenting looks like. Then speaking directly to those of us that are parenting, whether your kid is one month older or 20 years old. And then I think one of the really beautiful things is the connection that you get with older generations, because this wasn't possible for them. And so sometimes those are unspoken conversations that happen, and sometimes they're direct conversations as well.

00;07;09;08 - 00;07;14;22
David Morgenstern
And that's been one of the really amazingly beautiful parts of this, even just a couple months into it.

00;07;14;24 - 00;07;37;21
Paul Sullivan
David, I love that nuance answer. But I'm going to dad Splain here. Great, because there is something that all dads lose. Actually three things that they. Yeah, perfect. Let's do it. Okay. Ready? One. Sleep. Two. The ability to wake up on your own terms, I guess. Related to number one and three. The confidence that you're going to be able to sleep through the night uninterrupted.

00;07;37;21 - 00;07;50;12
Paul Sullivan
So I guess that all three really relate, but it's really. You have to like I become a master, David, at doing simple math in my head. Like, okay, if I go to bed now, what is the probability that I will get close to seven hours of sleep? So that I believe is.

00;07;50;16 - 00;08;06;20
David Morgenstern
I would say the whole week. So we have one child and my husband and I rotate off on the weekends. So I take off from Friday night at 8 p.m. until Saturday at 10 a.m., and he takes off Saturday 8 p.m. until Sunday at 10 a.m.. So most of my week is spent looking forward to Friday night. Any.

00;08;06;25 - 00;08;26;17
David Morgenstern
And then that weekly decision like I'm going to go do things and then it's like 745 on Friday and you're like, or I'm going to not do anything and I'm going to go to sleep. But also a lot of times it is going out. And, it's funny talking with when I go out in gay and queer spaces, I don't talk about my kid because then that's all people want to talk about.

00;08;26;17 - 00;08;44;17
David Morgenstern
And I'm like, I'm here to not talk about my child. But it's sort of the opposite. When I talk with some of the older gay dads and, who said, hey, previously I didn't talk about my kid because then you would just get shunned. So you have this, like, very interesting even in these, like, micro generational changes, of how that happens.

00;08;44;19 - 00;09;14;09
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Good question too. We've got a good number of married and single gay dads as part of the Company of Dads community. And you know, one thing I've heard repeatedly is that they've often felt, you know, doubly excluded from parenting resources. One is a gay man and two, as dads without a mom to sort of wade into the community resources that all seem to default to to moms, you know, how have you you navigated this world as a father?

00;09;14;11 - 00;09;27;29
Paul Sullivan
And what tips do you have for other dads trying to, you know, to be the best dad they can be? Knowing that so many of the resources are really controlled by, you know, by moms in communities.

00;09;28;01 - 00;09;48;26
David Morgenstern
That's a great question. So I think I probably answered that two different ways. One is who's the parent that I want to be? And the second is like, what's the reality of actually parenting? Because I think in the first you're trying to be mindful of and I think specifically, like in the queer community you are mindful of, we've created these spaces for ourselves, right?

00;09;48;26 - 00;10;08;29
David Morgenstern
And the power of being able to go and be within community and sort of being yourself. And I think a lot of time that that applies into mostly the mom spaces, right, of wanting to navigate. Am I intruding? Am I put, you know, how am I putting this together? Although I will say for daddies, part of it is, we have our gati bodies, right?

00;10;08;29 - 00;10;21;16
David Morgenstern
Which are the, the the moms and the women who had gay friends growing up and now their parent, and they want to show their kids different kind of blobs, or some of them are very explicit about being like, I want gay dad friends, will you be my friend? I would not say that's.

00;10;21;16 - 00;10;26;12
Paul Sullivan
Like, do you have a waiting? Do you have a waiting list for that? You know, like what? Yeah, there's an initiation.

00;10;26;12 - 00;10;29;03
David Morgenstern
Social calendar, and I'm like, we're actually booked.

00;10;29;03 - 00;10;34;00
Paul Sullivan
Into one of 529 plans. They make a donation into Simon's 529 plan. Boom. Okay.

00;10;34;00 - 00;10;55;27
David Morgenstern
The business, the business, reporting news is coming back in. Or I could be like, actually, friendship comes with purchasing this amount of, Candy's product. I should probably put that in together. I think a lot of it depends on, like, what is your community and where are you as sort of a a nuanced answer? You know, we live in a place where there are a lot of varieties of families in our school and in our community.

00;10;56;03 - 00;11;18;04
David Morgenstern
So there is this inner mixing a little bit, but it can be very strange to to your point of not wanting to include. And then I think for folks, a lot of it depends also how you came into fatherhood, right? I think for some people, for some getting queer dads, women, non-binary, fem folks were their community, right? So that's sort of like who they are used to interacting with.

00;11;18;04 - 00;11;38;29
David Morgenstern
For some people, it was used to interacting with the dads, and for some people it was somewhere in between. And so I think that can impact a lot of the experience based on like how you come into that. And sometimes you just got to say, we're not doing this. Definitely. Like there was an event with us where it was cigar night for the dad and then like Nails night for the mom.

00;11;39;01 - 00;12;02;03
David Morgenstern
Yeah, I was like, I'm not going to say Garnet. Right. And so, and also all the moms from school already know that my nails are already done. Right? So you can sort of, like, put those pieces together. But there definitely is there. I find more uncomfortableness with some with just the like, how we say this is what men have to be and this is what fathers have to be, because you also get a lot of dads talking to you of I don't want to do this either.

00;12;02;06 - 00;12;18;17
David Morgenstern
Right? So that's the other thing. You get like a lot of like we become the safe space in some elements where they're like, this is dumb. And I actually don't want to be doing this, but if you could be the one to say why this is dumb, I would love that, because I don't want to do that, you know, so that that can be challenging to navigate to.

00;12;18;19 - 00;12;32;28
Paul Sullivan
You know, to kids, you know, 7 to 15 and the default, you know, you know, is married straight dad. Like, let's go out and have a beer night. I'm like, man, I don't want to have any beers. Beers make me fat like I don't want. I want to do something that is like.

00;12;32;28 - 00;12;37;15
David Morgenstern
And then the gay dads will judge me, so they're not. Yeah. We can't do.

00;12;37;15 - 00;12;53;21
Paul Sullivan
That. I'm being judged. Yeah. Oh, all the time that, you know, I've told that very question three I've told a version of this story before, but I've got this great friend, Doctor Ramone, who reached out to me after moving out from, from Brooklyn to Connecticut. And he really struggled, you know, he moved out here like everybody does.

00;12;53;21 - 00;13;09;23
Paul Sullivan
He and his husband, also a doctor, they moved. They want a more space. There wasn't anything they wanted more space. They wanted to send the kids public school and all this. And of course, they go into this space and this, this well-meaning mom comes up and says, you know, try to help you out here. We got this Facebook group in town.

00;13;09;25 - 00;13;25;09
Paul Sullivan
Which one of you is the mom? To which she says, what the. You know, like, we're about that. And the woman's apologetic. She doesn't. She doesn't know how to say anything. She didn't know what to do. And, yeah, you know, detriment. I know that's offensive. Obviously it's offensive, but what that woman was trying to do is invite you into the Facebook moms.

00;13;25;09 - 00;13;38;15
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. For your town. Yeah. That's the source of all knowledge. And this guy went to Harvard Medical School. I said, doctor, man, you got a better shot of getting a Harvard Medical School than you do getting into that Facebook model group. So you're going to listen to your Irish-Catholic friend, and you're going to go get the hell out of her, and she will then let you.

00;13;38;15 - 00;13;59;18
Paul Sullivan
And not only did she let him in, but she changed the name of the group to a parenting group. Okay, that's a win. But one of the tougher players in this question, through one of the tougher places to get that win, is on the school forums, you know, and I told I was messing around with that. I said, what you do is you just put, you know, doctor and his last name and then and then your husband, he just puts doctor and his last name.

00;13;59;23 - 00;14;17;12
Paul Sullivan
And this will cause the heads of the people in school and at the dentist office that that calls their head to explode because they will try to look and find the name of a mom in there because they always want to call them mom. How do you navigate this? How do you navigate something that you know, to some listeners that may seem, you know, small?

00;14;17;12 - 00;14;42;08
Paul Sullivan
Why do you care? But I know my wife, who's super busy. She hates being, you know, called on something from the pediatrician because she didn't make the appointment. She didn't know what's going on. She's in a meeting. So, you know, as a married dad, how have you navigated this and what advice would you give to, you know, both those, you know, form creators and phone callers from schools and doctor's offices, but also, you know, to dads in general that want to make sure that they're if they're the ones who get call first.

00;14;42;11 - 00;14;51;13
David Morgenstern
Yeah. So actually I think elevate that up for a second, cause I think you hit on a really interesting point that is.

00;14;51;15 - 00;15;16;10
David Morgenstern
You know, gay dads have to decide where and how to come out every day all of the time. Right? So there is an innate safety issue that's underlying in the question that you just asked of. Do I feel comfortable answering this question in reality, or do I feel comfortable when you're at the pharmacy or you're at the restaurant and someone is like, where is where is the mom?

00;15;16;12 - 00;15;25;29
David Morgenstern
And you have to, in real time, make those decisions of, do I just say, oh, she's in the bathroom or oh, she is Rafael. Right. And I think for, for a lot.

00;15;26;00 - 00;15;34;25
Paul Sullivan
You know, you could really fuck with you could say, do you remember that plane that flipped over when it landed? She was on that plane. She didn't make it. And, you know.

00;15;34;27 - 00;15;36;05
David Morgenstern
While leave that everybody survived.

00;15;36;08 - 00;15;43;05
Paul Sullivan
Everybody. That's a nobody because there's a there's like, oh my God, I just feel awful. I don't I just had like we're survivors.

00;15;43;07 - 00;16;07;07
David Morgenstern
You know, I'm like I would say again, for me, a lot of it depends on where's the environment. And sort of I'm in, I'm in a place where I'm existing in my little bubble. I'd say I have a little less patience than my husband and a lot of other folks. But just I think that's important to say that, like, all of these questions are actually wrapped up under a much bigger element of do I feel safe being honest and open with with where I am?

00;16;07;07 - 00;16;30;16
David Morgenstern
And that can change in an in a day, no matter where you go. Right. I think to your to your actual question, getting getting back to it is this notion of a what if we just all moved into using terms that apply to everyone in general? And I think, like a lot of forms of, of allyship or bringing people in together, it's the things that can happen ahead of times.

00;16;30;19 - 00;16;54;13
David Morgenstern
I would say I definitely hear from a lot of dads who go to schools and the forms say, mom and dad, and many times they are the first gay family that they might have had that right. And I think you can get a very clear indication of what is the response when you do say, I would love to see the say parent want a parent to for a variety of reasons that can tell you that that can tell you a lot.

00;16;54;15 - 00;16;57;06
David Morgenstern
And then just sort of continue that, continue that forward.

00;16;57;08 - 00;17;20;13
Paul Sullivan
I love that. Question for is really, you know, following along on on that and it can you can answer it either from the corporate space or the community space. But you know, as marriage rate that I hear stupid stuff all the time from moms and dads. I hear it when I give talks, you know, at a companies this could you know, it's a lot of stuff in the community is presuming, you know, that mom is in charge.

00;17;20;13 - 00;17;37;02
Paul Sullivan
A lot of stuff in companies is, you know, if there's a parental leave policy, you know, why would the dad possibly, want to take this parental leave policy? You know, I didn't take that policy when, you know, I was in your role 25 years ago. Yeah. What's the stupidest stuff, that people have asked you and your husband.

00;17;37;02 - 00;17;53;15
Paul Sullivan
And then let's put a positive spin on that. Presuming the person saying those things isn't inherently stupid, but just say nervous or unsure of what to say. What advice do you give to those people in the community and in the companies to say things that you know, don't put somebody on the defensive?

00;17;53;18 - 00;18;08;27
David Morgenstern
Yeah. So I think to the first question, I would say that like, and this is part of what you're driving the change right now. But like society still has the lowest expectations for males as caregivers. And so just.

00;18;08;29 - 00;18;12;27
Paul Sullivan
I did not drop my child. Look at that. I carried my I look at you.

00;18;12;27 - 00;18;15;15
David Morgenstern
Not you didn't call it babysitting. You called it parenting.

00;18;15;15 - 00;18;16;08
Paul Sullivan
That's right.

00;18;16;08 - 00;18;36;02
David Morgenstern
Mind blown. Right. So I think like that's one thing that is very unique for, for our experience, especially when the two of you are together. I will say that before we had our child friends warned us, like, hey, you're going to get mostly moms coming up to you saying, as a mom, this is how I would do this, and that definitely happens.

00;18;36;02 - 00;19;10;23
David Morgenstern
And you do that initial read of what's going on. A lot of times I just say, bless your heart and sort of keep it, you know, keep it moving. Trying to trying to live there, but like, that's, that's real and that exists. And so that's where something being like a gay couple very different than a lesbian or queer mom couple, where they're just getting righted the entirety time of like, you get two people of society telling you you're doing such a bad job and you have such high expectations, where for us, they're like, just just for now, I will say the greatest part about being a gay dad is flying on planes, because the

00;19;10;23 - 00;19;34;27
David Morgenstern
service that you get from the gay and queer flight attendants is the most elite airline status that you can't buy like that. Is there? Like, do you need anything else? Are you okay? Do you want to get upgraded like this? Great. So, those people, those pieces, like, all come together. And then I think to the second question of like, how do you respond and what do you what do you do?

00;19;35;00 - 00;20;04;28
David Morgenstern
I mean, sometimes it's just saying, like, I don't understand, can you can you tell me that? But a lot of it is how much patience do you have at that day? How much sleep did you get that night? Honestly, sometimes it's. Do I want to make this person feel badly? I will say I'm in a couple of text chains with buddies from growing up or from college, or who are all dads, and I'm the only gay dad, and my only job in those is to be the case agent to be like, did any of you do anything productive for your wife or your children today?

00;20;05;05 - 00;20;24;18
David Morgenstern
Or, you know, they will say really stupid things. It's like they forget I exist and they will make all of these comments. And my job is to playback, like their comments around the patriarchy or how rude what they were saying, and then wait for who's going to respond first. But those are some of my favorite parts of the day is being like, I need you to be better.

00;20;24;18 - 00;20;25;03
David Morgenstern
Like, I know.

00;20;25;09 - 00;20;33;20
Paul Sullivan
These these, these text changes from when we were kids. I'm in this group of, you know, three guys that I would high school with. Yeah. And we all revert to being, you know, 14 years old.

00;20;33;22 - 00;20;39;00
David Morgenstern
Yeah, exactly. I'm like, yet here we are. So, you know, I don't know if that that sort of.

00;20;39;04 - 00;20;59;04
Paul Sullivan
Science question though, like, yeah, you know when you were at Nike you were, you know, you're leading, you know, the pride of employee, you know, research group. What do you think of some men in Nike has an image of it of being a progressive company. Maybe I'm wrong I don't know. But what are some of the things that you were able to accomplish through that pride ERG that that you're proud of that, that that made a difference in Nike.

00;20;59;06 - 00;21;22;22
David Morgenstern
Yeah. So one thing I'm super proud of was working directly with our chief executive and C-suite to implement gender inclusive shopping experiences in stores and the creation of new products built for all bodies. And that was really that was leading with data and that was leading with here's the consumer, right. The consumer today, they don't care if something's a men's shirt.

00;21;22;22 - 00;21;40;24
David Morgenstern
They don't care if something's a women's shirt, they don't care if it's a kid shirt. They want to go and make it their own. And to be that brand speaking directly to them. That was a line of work where you know you're able to directly influence and change things that maybe in some previous employee groups, you know, really didn't happen.

00;21;41;01 - 00;22;03;28
David Morgenstern
So there was that there were certainly passing, new transgender support, policies for employees. And then a lot of it was supporting and bringing things and bringing things like but definitely the creation of those in-store experiences, the like that was true bottom line business experience, that we were able to say we had a real we had a real impact there, which was pretty exciting.

00;22;04;00 - 00;22;36;06
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Question five fifth and final question. You know, as you said, we have the committee that we exist to welcome all the dads because we know this isn't an easy or as yet normalized role. But at the times and you've felt most authentically accepted as a dad, what was that environment like and how can you know others help create or recreate that environment for forget that,

00;22;36;09 - 00;22;57;07
David Morgenstern
Mostly I think it's just focusing on our on our kid. Right? And that, hey, look at this happy, healthy kid that is a byproduct of the home that they're that they're coming in for and focusing less on who is who specifically is is doing all all the work. And it's funny, the other night I heard it was like, oh, do you?

00;22;57;09 - 00;23;20;29
David Morgenstern
When I go to sleep, do you do the cleaning and all these things? I'm like, yes, I do, because you're not doing it. But I think it's just, it's speaking to, to them and then speaking to us that is asking asking questions about our kids that are not in a judgment away, but really focus on like, hey, this is what your family looks like, and let's talk about it.

00;23;21;01 - 00;23;28;03
Paul Sullivan
But it's okay. Like if they see your son and say something like, hey David, why is he not wearing Nike's? Is that an okay question or that never happened.

00;23;28;03 - 00;23;48;08
David Morgenstern
Wearing his because he's wearing Cleveland Cavaliers gear and not this guy because he's wearing guys. That's what he's going to. That's what he's doing. We we tried to do a photo shoot and the number of lollipops that it took to try to get like one photo out of the photographer was like, your child is adorable. Your child is also clearly hard headed to shit and would never listen to anyone.

00;23;48;08 - 00;23;58;06
David Morgenstern
So I, I don't I don't think you should try to turn them into a professional model. And I was like, that was never the plan. But, they definitely keep us. Yeah, definitely keeps us on our toes.

00;23;58;08 - 00;24;08;13
Paul Sullivan
Love a David Morgan Stern, founder and CEO of Gabby's, a clothing brand. Focus on gay followers. Thank you so much for being my guest today on the Company Dads podcast.

00;24;08;16 - 00;24;11;06
David Morgenstern
Amazing. Thanks, Bob.

00;24;11;08 - 00;24;29;02
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Company Dads podcast. Really appreciate you tuning in. Week after week to really use this moment here to thank the people who make it possible. Number one, of course, Helder Mira, who is our podcast editor. We also have skipper Terry Homes, who many of you know from the lead diaries.

00;24;29;02 - 00;24;52;07
Paul Sullivan
He's taken over our social media. Terry Brennan is helping us with our audience development. And Emily Servant is there. Each and every day helping with the web development and can't do any of this without, an amazing board, of advisors. So I just want to say thank you to all of you who help. And I want to say thank you to everyone who listens.

00;24;52;07 - 00;24;55;19
Paul Sullivan
And, hopefully you'll tune in again next week. Thanks so much.