Lead Dad 101
How To Do Relax and Do It Well
“How did you live like that?” This was my eight-year-old’s response when I told her that I grew up in a place, at a time, when Starbucks wasn’t ubiquitous in towns like ours. She and I had walked alone into town to get a smoothie bowl – also something I’d never heard of, if it […]
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Teach Your Kids The Randomness Of Life
Trips with kids are meant to expand their minds, to show them something different. We took our three daughters to Paris where we stayed at a friend’s apartment. It was also their first time to Europe. That alone would have been mind expanding. But we had three random encounters that got them thinking about how […]
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The Power of Preemptive Communication – Jay Lee
Here’s a story many couples know: Two careers on the fast track and then there’s a child. There’s some logistics with pick up and drop off but it all seems manageable, if expensive, and life keeps moving along. Then another child comes along and managing two kids and two careers becomes a juggle. Bigger opportunities […]
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Free Form Fridays Provided Structure and Openness – Anthony Legette
All parents want their kids to talk to them more, but too often it seems kids want to talk at just the time when parents are tied up with work or otherwise unavailable. We’re at work; they’re at home. We’re at home; they’re out with their friends. You get it. Anthony Legette, our Lead Dad […]
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What I Actually Want For Father’s Day
As all mothers know, and most children have to be reminded, Father’s Day is celebrated every year on the third Sunday of June. To be clear, I think Father’s Day is a great idea. But I’ve got a few issues with this holiday that I’d like to be entered into the record. First of all, […]
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A Dad Fighting The Good Fight – To Be Called First By School
When the phone rang from my daughter’s elementary school, with just two days left to the year, I scrambled to answer it. By some iPhone quirk it went to voicemail after just a ring. I wasn’t overly worried. I figured there was a 90 percent chance that the school nurse was calling with a reminder […]
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Stepping Up And Embracing The Change – Elliot Haspel
Not a lot of guys grow up thinking they’re going to be Lead Dads. Athletes, Lawyers, Tech Bros, sure. But Lead Dads? Elliot Haspel, our Lead Dad of the Week from Denver, was no different. Coming out of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, he was revving to go. “I was one of those guys in […]
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From Helping Kids In Need To Being A Lead Dad – Jeremy Benton
Jeremy Benton had a knack for working with kids; he also enjoyed a single life that allowed him to work extra jobs to earn extra money to travel and see the country. He didn’t plan to have kids of his own and that was fine. He felt he was making a difference working with at-risk […]
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How To Own Your Own Time As A Lead Dad – Sean MacMannis
Sometimes a resume doesn’t tell the full story of a father, even one filled with amble markers of success. Sean MacMannis, our Lead Dad of the Week from San Francisco, has a sterling educational pedigree – Dartmouth undergrad, Haas business school – and had startup success in tech and later blockchain. There was even a […]
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It’s Never To Late To Become a Lead Dad – Joseph Pennini
Being a Lead Dad is not a binary decision, either 18 years or nothing. It’s fluid and often dependent on whose career is busier in that moment. Joseph Pennini, who spent 25 years working at Brown Brothers Harriman before taking a buy-out, is embracing his ability to be a Lead Dad now. With him working […]
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How To Be Clutch As A Dad
I was talking to a high school athletics director this week from Trussville, Alabama. He had reached out to discuss a book I’d written 15 years ago. It’s about pressure and why some people excel under it and others don’t. There are five things that people who are good under pressure do, and each one […]
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Want To Golf, Work and Be a Lead Dad? Here’s The Secret – Jordan Coopersmith
Do Lead Dads still get to take trips with their friends? It was a question from a senior female executive and it remains unforgettable. She asked it in earnest – as someone whose husband was more Event Dad than Lead Dad – and I answered it honestly. (Yes, just with more planning.) Our newest Lead […]
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