The Company of Dads Podcast

Interview with Jay Rosenblatt / Filmmaker and Father HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN How do our kids change as they age? All fathers observe it in real time but Jay Rosenblatt recorded it. Starting when his daughter was 2, he interviewed her on camera every year on her birthday until she was 18. The result is a beautiful record of a father-daughter bond. Listen to what we can all learn from his endeavor....

Interview with Rocco Carreiro / Author and Financial Adviser HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN The three cords are work, family and self. And author Rocco Carreiro said all three need to be bound together for men to be happy and productive as Lead Dads, entrepreneurs or employees, and spouses or partners. No surprise: it's not easy to give your all to your business, your family and yourself? There are...

Interview with Linda Nielsen / Professor and Expert on Fathers & Daughters HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Do babies really bond better with moms? Do dads sacrifice less than moms? Are dads less empathetic, less compassionate, and less skilled at communicating than moms? These are all myths that hold fathers back, says Linda Nielsen, a professor at Wake Forest University. She's been researching t...

Interview with Professor David Smith / Naval Aviator, Gender Rights Expert HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN A Naval Academy graduate, David is an associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School where he focuses on inclusive leadership and gender in the workplace. His life in academia started after his stint as a Naval aviator, flying combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. How did he come t...

Interview with Reshma Saujani / Advocate For Women and Girls HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Reshma Saujani is an amazing force for working parents, an advocate for girls and a thinker on work today. She founded the nonprofit Girls Who Code, which worked to close the tech gap for women by teaching girls to be programmers. In the pandemic, she started a second nonprofit called the Marshall Plan for Moms, n...

Interview with Jeff Zaugg / Advocate For Fathers And The Fatherless HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Jeff Zaugg is the founder of DadAwesome, a nonprofit that’s all about helping fathers embrace their role as dads and be more present. Why? Because kids are watching us and they know when we are loving being their dad - and when we're distracted. Jeff also started Fathers for the Fatherless – a nonprofi...

Interview with Justin Breen / Entrepreneur, Lead Dad, Date Night Pro HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Justin Breen is a communications innovator from Chicago and the author of Epic Life: How To Build Collaborative Global Companies While Putting Your Loved Ones First. The book details what makes entrepreneurs not just great but happy and fulfilled. (Hint: it's not more stuff.) He is also a marathon lev...

Interview with Brooks Barron / The Inheritance of Good Fatherhood Examples HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Brooks Barron was destined for a high-achieving corporate life. He graduated from Princeton University as his father had and went on to Stanford's business school. Enormous wealth and professional accolades were his for the taking. But there was something about his Colorado childhood, its inspir...

Interview with Todd Detwiler / Illustrator and Author of How To Dad HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN There is no shortage of books on parenting but they're written for mothers - only to be read by the rare father. Todd Detwiler set out to change this with his illustrated - and funny - book: How To Dad. It begins with his own Covid parenting stumbles as he worked to figure out what he should do, and wh...

Interview with Shawn Lesser and Brent Herd / Men's Mental Health Advocates HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Shawn and Brent are fathers who have had professional success and family success. But like many men, they’ve also had mental health struggles. Brent’s came first. Shawn, who was bringing together investors in some of the nicest places in America, had his crisis last year. When it happened, Shawn...

Interview with Kevin Olmsted / Author and Advocate for Anorexia Awareness HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Kevin Olmsted wrote the book "Scared Dad Feeding: How My Daughter’s Anorexia Took Me To Hell and My Guidebook for How I Got Back" about his family's experience. But he was moved to write it to help other dads get through what his family is still navigating: helping a child who lost 30 p...

Interview With The Band of Sisters / Advocates For Change HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN The Band of Sisters are six senior female executives who have seen it all and not all that they’ve seen has been good. They've written “You Should Smile More: How to Dismantle Gender Bias in the Workplace" - the title a phrase all six women were told in their careers. Listen to two of the sisters, Angelique...

Interview with Jaclyn Wong / Expert on Career, Relationship & Family Decisions HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Balancing the competing pressures of modern work and caregiving roles is hard for everyone. Professional couples fall into three categories that may not be good for them long term. Consistent compromises. Autonomous actors. Tending traditional couples. Learn what each one means for you and al...

Interview with Kelly McGinnis / President of the Working Parent Institute HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Parental burnout is only recently a topic that is getting talked about openly. All parents can struggle with it but Lead Dads and Working Moms are juggling working, parenting, living, being a spouse and a friend every day. Kelly McGinnis is leading a reevaluation as the president of Incredible Family,...

(This is part 6 of a 6 part mini-series: The Global Dads Council.) How do you unlock dads at work and allow them to be full parents? Research shows it makes workers more productive, and builds loyalty and engagment with the company. Yet companies have been slow to adapt to the post-pandemic world of work. It's easy to blame Boardroom Dads for being out of touch but it's a problem that ra...

Interview with Jeff Siegel / Health and Wellness Coach for Men HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Being a father is loaded with expectations - many stemming from how society pushes men into a certain way of being a father. Jeff Siegel, a health and wellness coach with Harvard credentials and mindfullness training, is pushing back against those assumptions. He wants men to let go of heroic images of fatherhoo...

(This is part 5 of a 6 part mini-series: The Global Dads Council.) Fathers can play a positive role in guiding their children through school-age sports. Sometimes it can be as easy as playing with them in the backyard. Othertimes it can be more organized games and leagues. But so often, just being out there with them - or driving them home - can open up a world of conversations. Hear how dads arou...

Interview with Charlie Rosier / Founder of Babbu, Childhood Learning Expert HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN What do you do when you want to entertain your toddler with something educational but you don't know where to go or whether the resource you find will be any good? Stuck at home during the pandemic, Charlie Rosier, a single parent with a toddler, pondered this question. The result is Babbu, an...

(This is part 4 of a 6 part mini-series: The Global Dads Council.) Working parents, moms and dads, need time for self-care. But how do you get that space when there is so little free time? Work. Parenting. Spousal time. They eat up a day! Does it just come down to managing guilt? Or is there something else holding us back to relaxing and being better men? Bryan Tan from Singapore leads off this di...

Interview with Sara Madera / Relationship Coach, Parent Thinker HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN What comes first: Gender equity at work or at home? In this week's podcast, I discuss the issue with Sara Madera, founder of Plan Creatively, which works with working moms to manage the demands of career and parenthood. We talk about the role Lead Dads play in this at home and in the workplace. Listen to w...

(This is part 3 of a 6 part mini-series: The Global Dads Council.) The Global Dads Council Takes On Work-Life Balance Around the world, fathers want to work differenly. We're at an inflection point in the work-life debate. Allowing men to be dads at work is about unlocking families' potential and finding what's right at home and in the office. It's the missing link around gende...

Interview With Brett Edwards / Hollywood Actor, Dallas Lead Dad HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Brett Edwards plays tough guys on screen. He was in American Sniper, the film based on a Navy Seal's life. He's been in CSI, Narcos and Westworld. But the hypermasculine roles he plays on screen are just that, roles. At home, he is a Lead Dad to his two daughters and his wife, who runs her own consult...

(This is part 2 of a 6 part mini-series: The Global Dads Council.) The Global Dad Council Debates Balancing Being a Dad and a Partner What's easier to master - fatherhood or the art of being a great husband? Neither is easy but being a great husband can often take a backseat to the more immediate needs of a child. The good news is there are some easy fixes. The bad news is you need to be awar...

Interview With Alison Graham, Global Exec, Lead Dad Advocate HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Alison Graham, a native Australian, came to the States 25 years ago and has had a remarkable career in tech - Unisys. Computer Associates. IBM. Salesforce. Amazon Web Services. She credits her Lead Dad husband - who was also working in tech - with being the go-to parent when she was traveling at different times in...

(This is part 1 of a 6 part mini-series: The Global Dads Council.) Four Fathering Groups, Four Countries, One Unified Mission How universal are the joys and challenges of being a father around the world? That word can mean different things - a caregiver, a Lead Dad, a husband, a provider, a friend. To find out, we've created The Global Dads Council, whose founding members are: Paul Sullivan,...