Ryan Hamilton talks about the Life of Dad

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Joy, joyful, courage, parenting podcast episode 40.

Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. I am really looking forward to sharing today's show with you. I have a really special guest by the name of Ryan e Hamilton, we don't get, oh, a car just drove by. Did you hear that I'm actually recording outside of my daughter's volleyball practice, because I do what I need to do to deliver the goods to you. So anyway, my podcast guest today, his name is Ryan Hamilton, and he is one of the co founders of the life of dad, which is a website, a social media website, a social network for dads and dad, bloggers and people that want to talk about fatherhood. And I'm super excited to have him on the show, because I know that I bring in a lot of female voices. And you know, dads have stuff to say too. So with that being said, if you know of a dad who's doing really important work in the parenting arena or the human being arena, will you let me know? Tip me off, because I'd love to get a more diverse guest list to the podcast. So yeah, do that for me, won't you? So the podcast today, Ryan and I are going to talk about life of dad. We're going to talk about how he feels about the representation of dads out in the parenting arena. We're going to talk a bit about being a vegan because I told him that we would. And we're going to talk about how to be. How do I put this for moms? How moms can be ever more what's the right word effective at sharing parenting tips and tools with their male partners? So yeah, we're gonna talk about a whole bunch of other things too, and you're just gonna have to wait and find out. Ryan is an entrepreneur. He's a total tech guy, software developer. He's got a lot of things up his sleeve, and I'm super excited that I get to see him really soon in the next couple days, at the mom 2.0 conference in Laguna. So I'll let you know how that goes. But for now, I'd love to introduce you to Ryan.

Hey there, Ryan, welcome to the podcast. Hey, thanks

Ryan Hamilton 2:35
for having me. Casey.

Casey O'Roarty 2:36
How are you I'm great. How are you doing? Great? Is it Sunny? Where you are,

Ryan Hamilton 2:41
it is finally sunny. It is really sunny. And you know, we're finally getting, you know, the spring weather out here, you know, after, you know, somewhat of a long, arduous winter and heavy snowfall, snowpocalypses, I guess, is what they call it. But, uh, yeah, Spring has sprung, I think. And where are you? And then, kind of the the Washington, DC metro area, a place called Gaithersburg, Maryland, if you're familiar with

Casey O'Roarty 3:04
it. Oh, you know what? I remember that we had a little back and forth about this. My husband is a lineman and came out for one of your snowpocalypse experiences. So, yes,

Ryan Hamilton 3:13
yeah, I do remember that we were on Facebook, and I think your husband was out here helping, you know, helping to bail us out. I think you know, that was the that was the first snowpocalypse of the season. I think we had a kind of a follow up, second one. But all's well, good. Like I said, spring is here, so we're

Casey O'Roarty 3:30
good, yay. So tell the listeners a little bit about who you are and your family and what you do in the world.

Ryan Hamilton 3:36
Oh, what I do in the world? Wow. Where to begin, certified bona fide tech geek, I guess, is where you start there. You know, I've been a tech geek, coder, programmer, pretty much all of my life. I think, you know, when I was growing up back in St Louis, Missouri, you know, my dad owned a computer store. So, you know, I've been surrounded by, you know, tech and computers pretty much all of my life. And back when I was in elementary school, you know, started fumbling around with code. And, you know, we had a computer lab at the school. And, you know, certainly, my dad had a, you know, lab at his, you know, you know, a wide variety of computers at his store, you know. So you're talking like Apple twos and Commodore 60 fours and things like that, right? I started, you know, kind of fumbling around with, you know, primitive games and teaching myself how to code. I coded it basic on an Apple two back in the day. And this was back when I was in, like, I don't know, like second or third grade or something and, and so really, you know, kind of caught the bug early in terms of, you know, like my tech passion in kind of geeking out on, you know, computers and things like that, you know, fast forward here, you know, several decades later. And you know, I'm a, you know, 38 year old man, and you know, a parent of a nine year old son of my own, and he's a technophile, just like Daddy, you know, kind of following my. Lead, I guess. And, you know, big time gamer geek himself, you know, of course, with which much, you know, much more advanced tools nowadays, you know, like smartphones and tablets and things like that. And I don't know, it's been really cool to kind of see, you know, the tech world kind of evolve since, you know, the early 80s, back when I started out,

Casey O'Roarty 5:23
back when we were, back when we were playing Pong. Oh, well,

Ryan Hamilton 5:27
yeah, Pong was actually a little bit before my time. And,

Casey O'Roarty 5:29
oh, I'm a few, I've got a few years on, you Ryan, we were playing Pong. I dabbled

Ryan Hamilton 5:34
a little bit in Pong when, you know what, I was teaching myself how to, you know, code games and things like that. I, you know, we had the benefit of, you know, things being a little bit simpler and more primitive back then. But, you know, again, you know, fast forward a few decades here. You know, you know, we're in our 30s now, and you know, I'm approaching, you know, middle age. I've got a son of my own. And you know, I'm a parent. I'm a dad and and you know, still am a programmer, a coder, to this day, but using much more kind of advanced tools. I mean, we have smartphones, we have tablets, you know, our computing technologies, and we, my gosh, we have, you know, smart watches now, you know, in just the the rich functionality that exists in this day and age is just, it's, it's, it's a dream come true in one on one hand and it's mind blowing. On the other hand, it's like everything that I used to dream about as a kid has come true. And, you know, now that I'm a father, I get to kind of, you know, live vicariously through my son, kind of see the world through his eyes. And, you know, kind of see how he's picking up tech. And it's just really interesting to kind of almost like, relive childhood, you know, through his eyes.

Casey O'Roarty 6:40
Oh yeah, wait till he gets into middle school, then you get to relive Middle School, which actually hasn't been that horrible, but it's like, whoa, I'm back, but I have way more information this time around. Yeah.

Ryan Hamilton 6:50
And then hormones are raging and becoming a little bit more difficult and things like that. And he might have to kind of monitor his, you know, online activity. Who knows it? But? But, you know, it's just, it's really kind of a fascinating thing for me to see. So, you know, to sum it up, I'm, you know, I'm a tech geek, and I'm a dad, and, you know, by day, I work in the advertising industry and in, you know, doing kind of mobile advertising development, and, you know, kind of mobile gaming development, things like that, for advertisers of the world. And then I also run a social network in entertainment destination on the side for fathers, and it's called Life of dad. And, you know, really excited to kind of see how that is grown from infancy, five years ago to, you know, kind of, kind of touch the world in a way,

Casey O'Roarty 7:40
yeah, yeah. Tell us more about life of dad. You're you're the founder. Yeah,

Ryan Hamilton 7:45
co founder. Yeah, three, three founders. Our original founder is a gentleman named Tommy riles. He is the warm up act for Ellen DeGeneres and Los Angeles, California. He's the guy that you know before Ellen takes the stage on her show. He's the guy that kind of gets the audience warmed up for the show, like, you know, gets the energy levels high so that, you know, Ellen DeGeneres can take the stage

Casey O'Roarty 8:10
amped up. That's great. I need that person.

Ryan Hamilton 8:14
I think we all need that person, especially in the morning time, like, kind of a pep talk or something, but, uh, but, yeah, he's just a wonderful guy. He's the original founder of the site. And you know, the genesis of life of dad was really kind of a very personal story for him. He and his wife, you know, when they were expecting their first child. You know, the doctors, you know, told them midway through the pregnancy that, you know their daughter was had congenital heart defects, which was really kind of unsettling for them. I mean, that you know, your first time parent, you realize that you know your your child has a heart condition, you know, so, so they're kind of midway through the pregnancy like, oh my gosh, I don't know if our daughter is going to have a shot at life, you know, she's going to have a chance to make it. So it's really kind of a trying time for them and for Tommy, you know, he started blogging, you know, he, he, you know, he's going through a lot of kind of pain and uncertainty and just just mixed feelings and emotions were, you know, kind of rushing around, you know, his brain. So he had to get it out, you know, he had it. He had to kind of express himself in a way. So, so literally, the first blog post, or the first bit of content for life of dad, was actually on Facebook. It was a Facebook note. And if, if you and your listeners kind of remember, like, you know, Facebook still has notes, but they're not quite used as heavily as they you know, once were. But, you know, he got on Facebook and really just kind of bore all about the emotions that he was having literally in the hospital room as his daughter was about to be born. And so the. Was the genesis of life of dads from a hospital room, from a very kind of heart wrenching personal story and so, so, you know. So when I, you know, when I talk about life or dad, I, you know, it's amazing to see kind of the growth and the effect that it's had on the world, but to always remember that it started off as Tommy Ryles personal story is really kind of, you know, what keeps me grounded and humble, and what keeps us all just kind of purposeful and knowing like, Hey, why did we start this thing to begin with? And why do we, why do we run this company, you know, right, well,

Casey O'Roarty 10:35
and as it's evolved over the last five years, how would you say, you know, from that founding story. How would you say the mission has evolved? I mean, if you're going to talk about, you know, purpose, yeah, what do you feel is purpose around life of dad?

Ryan Hamilton 10:50
Well, the purpose is really, you know, to enable a father to share his story, just like, you know, Tommy originally shared his story from a hospital room. I mean, so, so to kind of sum up the evolution of the, you know, the company, it's, you know, life or death started off in a hospital room, very kind of personal plain, you know, actually, you know, a Facebook note, which evolved later into kind of a WordPress blog, really plain vanilla, no real, you know, elaborate theme or anything, just a plain vanilla WordPress blog with Tommy at the center of it all. And, you know, he kind of brought in two of his brother in laws who were also parents at the time, who were also fathers, Dan Lazars and Patrick Quinn, who are still kind of part of the original, you know, core team to this day. You know, so, one person became kind of like three people rocking out on this, this WordPress blog. And you know, then he inadvertently met my longtime good friend from St Louis, old camp buddy of mine. He met David guest, who's a video producer and Film School teacher out in LA and they met on jury duty, oddly enough. And David is just a really great guy, but, you know, they inadvertently met on jury duty, and David so happened to be, you know, a young father at the time, and they just started talking and like, oh, you know, oh, my God, I'm in, you know, I'm doing film and, you know, I'm doing film production, video production. And Tommy was like, Oh, I'm a comedian. I do the thing for Ellen. And, you know, hey, let's, you know, I'm a dad. You're a dad. Hey, let's get together and do something so, so kind of a small team of bloggers became, like an even larger kind of handful of bloggers at, you know, kind of crazy video shorts. And, you know, just they started rocking out. And so Tommy, you know, his daughter, eventually, after that kind of trying time in the hospital, you know, she was born, got rushed off to surgery. The doctors fixed her broken heart. You know, literally, they got in, did the surgery. And you know, to this day, you know, she's a healthy, you know, six year old girl, so they patched up her heart. And you know, once Tommy saw that, hey, you know, this kind of dire, depressing, emotional story is becoming much more of a celebration of her life. You know, my gosh, you know, we didn't know if she was ever going to make it now, she's here, she's healthy, she's home. You know, we get to cuddle her and snuggle her and celebrate her life. So life of dad really kind of became a celebration of parenting, of fatherhood, and of life itself. And you know, like again, you know Tommy, he incorporated his brother in laws into it, and then met my friend, David. Guest, David. Guest, you know, you know, they started rocking out making video shorts, and like, you know, as it became much more of a celebration of her life, it became much, you know, Tommy was a comedian by trade, so got to incorporate a little bit more of the comedy and kind of the light hearted feel into the site. So they were like, Oh my gosh. You know, there's really something to this. Perhaps we can open this up where this becomes kind of more than Tommy your story, or, you know, David's story, or Patrick's story or Dan's story. Maybe we can open this up to the world and kind of allow a world full of fathers to share their story with the world in much, in much the same kind of open and vulnerable, kind of transparent way that Tommy originally did and and so they reached out to me. They were like, Hey, let's make a social network out of this. And I was skeptical at the time. I saw a few of their video shorts, and I thought it was kind of crazy. I never heard of dad blogging. I thought it was kind of bizarre. Actually, the first, you know, few video shorts I saw, I was like, Dude, I don't know about this. I don't our dads real. Did dads really do this stuff? Well,

Casey O'Roarty 14:47
that's yeah, that's my question. Like, are Have you found that dads are really anxious to get their stories out? Uh, yes,

Ryan Hamilton 14:54
absolutely. Awesome, absolutely. And, my gosh, in bigger and better ways than we could have ever. Even imagine. But you know, you know when I was originally, but I, but I, but on the flip side of that, I can understand what you just said there, it's kind of like, Yeah, I had never heard of this stuff. I didn't know that dads did this stuff or cared about this stuff. And my initial reaction to it was kind of like, not off putting, but just kind of do this is weird. I'm like, I'm a dad. The best have time for this and do all this kind of stuff, like, really. But the more I got to experience what they were doing in kind of saw read a few of their stories, and kind of immersed myself into the content of the site a little bit more I was like, wait a second at the you got to understand, at the time, I was going through a lot of issues and depression and just tumultuous time in my life. You know, I was going through a divorce. I just been laid off from my job, financial collapses, plural were happening around me. I was losing everything in sight. My wife had moved across the country, took my son. I was, I was in the thick of a depression at the time, and and so I was experiencing life and dad at the for the first time, kind of blindly. But you know, the more I got to experience the content of the site, I looked at my own life, I was like, Wait a second. I

I, I'm going through a parenting story myself. I can, I need commute. I'm lonely, community myself. Like, um, I can share my story with the world just like they did. Like, look, I'm not going through like, you know, a happy picket fence kind of, you know, lifestyle and things that you're talking about Tommy, but I've got a story to tell. Maybe I can talk about my depression, or maybe I can talk about how I'm turning my life around, and maybe I can talk about being a laid off dad, or maybe I can talk about this divorce that I'm going through. So I so I started blogging about, like, how my wife had moved across the country and took my son and and kind of the darker side of parenting and fatherhood from my point of view. So it I once I did that, I caught the bug, and I was like, Yeah, dude, I'm in. Let's build this. Because

Casey O'Roarty 17:16
so great. That's so great, because you're not, you aren't, you know, we aren't in our own private freak show like this, is such a collective journey. And to have dads out there expressing their experience from their perspective, I think we get, I mean, we get so much from the moms, myself included. And I mean, even when I teach parenting classes, typically the moms show up and the dads get dragged right? And so it's really refreshing and exciting to recognize that there is this whole outlet and, and I think that there's, there is a bit of MIS I think dads are misrepresented. I think there's some assumptions that we make about dads,

Ryan Hamilton 17:57
maybe a little bit, yeah, and I like what you said there about, you know, the personal freak show thing. Because you know what, I was going through, my depression. And look, I was, I was literally about to tune out. I, you know, I didn't know how much more life I could take at the time. But, you know, I thought I was all alone. And I was literally all alone. Many times I was sitting in an empty, kind of foreclosed on home, just about to lose everything in my life. And what I realized is that, you know, when I wrote that first post, the response that it got in to see the commenting threads of people saying, oh my gosh, I've been through the exact same thing, you know, I'm going through the same thing right now. Or even dads who've kind of, like, been there, done that, who are, like, farther along in the game that out, you know, you know they they've been through the dating and they've gotten remarried, and they're living happily and they're living the picket fence lifestyle now. So, you know, so it so I realized, look, I'm not alone, and that no matter what your story is, like, look, you're not a freak, because chances are, there's like, you know, if you are a freak, there's like, you know, millions of other freaks just like you in the world that are going through the same exact thing, yeah, not alone.

Casey O'Roarty 19:04
Michael Franti. Michael Franti says, All the freaky people make the beauty of the world. Oh, absolutely,

Ryan Hamilton 19:10
absolutely.

Casey O'Roarty 19:13
I'm glad I had the opportunity to quote Michael Franti on my podcast. Makes me really happy.

Ryan Hamilton 19:18
Well done, Michael, but, to visit your point, because you asked about misrepresentation, yeah, yes, I definitely do think that, you know, we're overcoming, and you know we're seeing in the world right now somewhat of a push towards equity, towards equality. You know, you certainly see, you see it in many communities. You know, whether it's, you know, whether we're talking about race or gender issues, or, in this case, parenthood, you know, there's a push towards, you know, kind of misrepresented underrepresented people, pushing for equity, pushing for equality, and really just kind of trying to reach some parity. Yeah, and, and, you know, we certainly see this in the dad community, you know, on the flip side, I mean, my gosh, you know, moms and women have been going through struggles of their own for the past, you know, decades, centuries, you know, pushing for, you know, rights and for equality of their own. And now we live in a day and age where, yeah, you do have a lot of, like working women, and, you know, professional women, where, you know, increasingly anymore, you see a lot of stay at home dads. So it's like kind of a shift in roles, in kind of parental expectations. And just the trends are shifting a little bit, and to overcome these kind of long held traditional paradigms is a rough thing to do. I mean, you're not going to reach equality overnight. You're not even going to reach quality over generations. You know, mountains will be moved in time. You know, give, give us a little bit

Casey O'Roarty 21:03
of time. Gosh, we need to see that. Such great, yeah. But

Ryan Hamilton 21:06
here's what I will say, here's what I will say is that the burgeoning dad communities that we see at life of dad, you know, we certainly see a burgeoning dad community on Facebook, with the dad bloggers group, you know, with awesome events like dad 2.0 Summit, you know, who came in the heels, of of course, the, you know, the fabulous mom 2.0 summit event, you got great organizations like, you know, national at home dad network, you know, national fatherhood initiative, city dads group, just a wide array of just kind of these burgeoning dad communities sprouting up all over the place. Life of dad included that we're really making change in the world. We're enabling fathers to say, hey, look, you know, just like I told you about myself back in when I first engaged with the dad community, thought it was awkward, thought it was bizarre, but really kind of find another family there, like, you know, literally, a second family to me, in many cases, the primary family, you know, given the divorce, but, but, but, you know, we're seeing communities of fathers, you know, congregating with one another, constantly advocating for change, pushing for what's right, if dads are misrepresented, you know, we are kind of, you know, we're changing the media. We saw this, you know, I think it was Super Bowl 2014 last year. You know, not this past Super Bowl, but the year before that. You know, all the kind of awesome dad commercials that were out there. Yeah, that's a direct result of of the efforts day in day out, that that all these kind of different dad communities uniting with one another and pushing for this change. You know, there reaches a point like the customer is always right, you know? Yeah, the market has a way of kind of shifting. When people demand it, it's literally supply and demand and what dads the power of dads coming together, seeing eye to eye, saying, hey, you know, we're not going to push we're not going to put up with this kind of inequality in anymore. We're going to push for change. You know, you'll see things like the Super Bowl commercials that that portrayed dads in a much better light than they were portrayed back in, like, the 80s or 70s, you know,

Casey O'Roarty 23:23
or at least a different, at least a more expanded role, right? Because I was a child of divorce and when my and when my parents split in the late 70s, I mean, it was we went to dads every other weekend. And that is crazy for me to think back on how little time we spent with our dad, not because he didn't want to see us, but that was just kind of the norm, right? And then, you know, last week, I had Brandy wikely from the new family podcast on the show and and she talks about she has a whole community of people that she leads around co parenting and her husband, her ex husband lives next door, and, you know, and it's day to day by day, the where the kids are. And it's just such a beautiful shift around dads, you know, assuming instead of like, oh, the kids need to be with mom, dads want to be with their children. Oh, absolutely. And how can we support what's and children want to be with their dads? Oh, of course. Oh

Ryan Hamilton 24:25
my gosh, yeah, yes. And

Casey O'Roarty 24:27
the whole stay at home dad thing too. I mean, it's so that one is so fascinating to me, because I get so excited when I meet stay at home dads and I am fascinated by the converse, by the conversation of not with them, but with other people around, like, Well, yeah, but why isn't he working right? You know, I'm talking about right, and it's so fast. It's just like, from a sociological standpoint, it's just really fascinating that we can value having a caregiver at. Home. But when that caregiver is Dad, it's like, Hmm, well, what's the deal there? Right? Yeah. And

Ryan Hamilton 25:06
you certainly have plenty of you know, like my man, art Eddie, you know, the CO another part of the life of dad team. He's my co host on the life of dad after show.

Casey O'Roarty 25:16
He's the podcast guy, right? He's, I've heard him, he's the podcast

Ryan Hamilton 25:19
like, he's the guy that interviews Shaquille O'Neal and then, in the next minute, just goes in, like, fixes his daughter's hair for the family, like, so he's a stay at home. Dad, yeah. And dude works hard, yeah, you know he, he works hard for life. And, dad, you know he, you know, you know, technically, kind of coined him a work at home dad. But, you know, you have dads that all they do, and I'm not saying all they do to be demeaning. I'm saying that the primary thing that they do is to take care and raise the children while the, you know, the mother is out on a professional job, out in the workplace. It's

Casey O'Roarty 25:59
no joke. It's a ton of shit to deal with, and

Ryan Hamilton 26:03
they're working hard. Yeah, they're absolutely, totally, they're at the IEP meetings. They're at the playgroups, you know, sometimes getting the sideways glances from the mothers there, you know, and kind of facing all kinds of just awkward situations. But hey, they do what they must to raise their family for sure. Yeah, and what I'd say from kind of, my personal story, you know. And you said something about co parenting, that's something that's very near and dear to my heart, you know. And I told you earlier in the show that, you know, my wife had moved across the country, and there was a point in time where there was a lot of anger, a lot of resentment, a lot of just kind of, you know, debate and just contention there, right? But in long, you know, in Long story short, we've kind of realized, over the years to really keep things amicable, to work together extremely well. You know you were talking about, you know, you know your friends there that, you know they lived, you know, kind of next door. You know? Well, my ex wife, and I don't live next door, but I can literally walk to her house in like, 1015, minutes, yeah, son, and that's awesome. I can drive in, like, you know, five minutes, so and so, you know, she, she is a work at home. Mother, I am a work at home. Father, so it's, it's interesting. We it's a very well balanced situation in our households. Because, you know, my ex wife, you know she works from home, I work from home. You know, we're raising a son, a child with autism and ADHD. So, I mean, you know, in addition to his school, you know he has, you know, the occupational therapies. He has the speech and language pathologist around him. He has a whole wide range of psychologists and, you know, therapists, you know, helping him to cope with the divorce and the family situation. So, I mean, we surround ourselves with professionals, you know, and then we have to go, you know, attend the IEP meetings and make sure that, you know, his education is on track, you know, but, but you know to the point about kind of misrepresentation. And you know, certainly, what I've been talking about, you know, equality and equity is that you'll see both of us at the IEP table. Yeah, you know, you I'm there, you know, you'll see me at the therapist. You know, I'm a chauffeur, you know, you know, and in we, we try to balance out those duties to the degree that it's fair. You know, my wife is certainly better at some things than I am. Like, look, I suck at dealing with insurance companies and benefits, and I just look like doing my job and rather than like knowing how to deal with, like, you know, prescriptions and all, you know, I just we all have our skills, Ryan, have our strengths and our weaknesses. Yes, like, suck at some things. You know, my wife is good at it. And, you know, sometimes I guess you could come up, you know, hard on me, like I write, I would really like help with the insurance companies, because I don't like dealing with them, but you're better at it. But, you know, we try to keep things balanced. But what I'll say about kind of the misrepresentation, is that the way, sometimes some of the therapists, not all, some because things are changing, right in some of the, you know, Educational Administrators, not all. Some of them, you know, deal with the father in the room versus other. It's almost like, sometimes the body language is kind of like turned toward the mother there is kind of the primary parent. And so just, just in large ways and small, you know, from from mass media on down to like, the IEP, right? I mean that those inequalities are kind of being dealt with day in, day out.

Casey O'Roarty 29:49
Yeah, yeah, and it's messy, and there's absolutely a change in the tide. And I love that life of dad exists as a vehicle for. Are giving voice. Appreciate that. Yeah, I think it's really cool. And so when I was on the website recently, I noticed that there were a lot of recipes, which is so totally, like, speaks to my bias, like, oh, Dad's Cook, which is ridiculous for me to say, because my husband's totally, he totally cooks and knows how to cook. He's a better cook than I am, anyway, and you I know, are a vegan. So tell us about I promised you we'd talk about this. I appreciate that. Tell us about your journey to veganism, my

Ryan Hamilton 30:37
journey to veganism, first off, I'd like to boldly state that I do cook, I and I cook with a capital, awesome. Okay, I mean, I, I bless the world and myself with my cooking. That's, that's how I like, you know, I don't just cook. I cook, you know, like, you know, when I cook, I go all in. I'm chopping vegetables. Everything is absolutely from scratch. Everything is whole and as organic as possible. Because, you know, our bodies are temples, and I treat it as such. Haven't always, but I've learned to my journey towards veganism is really kind of been in the past two to two and a half years. Again, like I said, I've gone through a lot of pain in my life. Was deep in depression years ago, you know, through the thick of, you know, the divorce, and in the throes of, you know, being laid off and and dealing with unemployment and estrangement from my son and, yeah, just, you know, financial collapse, and just just the just issues and problems that I can't even articulate on this, this, you know, this podcast here. But I was, I was literally suicidal. I couldn't, you know, but in in and it was at a time where, yes, I was starting to build life of dad that was keeping me occupied during, you know, the unemployment time. Glad I stuck to it. My gosh, but, but at the same time, I was a, I was really kind of working on a lot of other kind of freelance projects and running myself ragged. And I would pull all nighters. And, you know, I was drinking a ton of just like alcohol, like beer and whiskey. And my ideal, my idea of nutrition back then, was kind of like pulling all nighter, hey, I'm gonna stock up, you know, go to the local convenience store, maybe get a bag of chips or some pretzels. Maybe

Casey O'Roarty 32:23
a burrito. My husband's known to stop for a burrito.

Ryan Hamilton 32:28
Actually, like, hoagies and, like, subs, in my case, yeah, and, and, oh my gosh. Like, hello. Like, midnight, Taco Bell runs like, McDonald's is open all night. This is before they had, like, you know, all day breakfast. But like, I would go to McDonald's at like, you know, midnight, 1am and get, like, I don't know, two double, two double quarter pounders with cheese, 20 piece McNugget and, like, a large fry, just because I wanted to eat. And it was tasty, you know. And so my gosh, I was just running myself ragged all nighters, no sleep, eating like total crap. And I don't know, just ultimately, I wasn't I wasn't productive. I was productive, but I wasn't mentally stimulated, I wasn't happy. I was really depressed, and I was suicidal, and I had to turn it around. I don't know what specifically kind of did it. Here's the funny part of the story as to why it went vegan, the kind of painstaking effort in all the toil, blood, sweat and tears I poured into life of dad around year two or three, things started to improve. The site really kind of grew and grew and grew. And we were like, wait a second, this is kind of becoming a thing enough so that, you know, things like dad, 2.0 summit started to inviting, you know, started to invite us to speak. Mom, 2.0 summit invited me to speak, yeah, 1013 and they wanted me to speak in front of just a bunch of people that never really kind of been into public speaking or anything like that. The irony there kind of the weird part about that is like, okay, so I'm just kind of like, you know, depressed, somewhat homeless, broke, you know, like suicidal man who's just been invited to what it was it like this, really glitzy, glitzy, like, you know, Ritz. I don't think it was like the Ritz Carlton down in like, Buckhead of Atlanta to speak to, like, hundreds of women, and isn't

Casey O'Roarty 34:43
that, isn't I love, I love this story. I love where this story's going, Ryan, because it's like, there's what there's what we do, and there's who we are, yeah, and when it a situation like this, that it's so glaringly obvious to us, like, wow, how misaligned we are. Because I. Yeah. You know, as a parent educator, I stand up in front of parents and talk about building relationship and using tools, and then I might find myself, you know, in the throes of mommy meltdown with my kids, and it's like, how can I show up for parents? Yeah, if I can't get it together? Oh, absolutely, such a nice kick in the pants, right? Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Hamilton 35:21
So the interesting part was that, okay, so I've just been invited to speak to a bunch of just like, professional women, apparently, like, you know, think I got their stuff together, and they want me to speak like, look, I'm, I'm sitting in just like this empty home and life or dad is, like, somewhat cool. It's beginning to take off. But, you know, and it is becoming something in I don't people think like, I'm more important than I am, you know, like that, like, but, but, but to your point, go with it. I was like, Wait a second, I am important. Like, look like I have built something of value here. People do like it, like my work does matter, right? Like, like, you know, it just like I said that first blog post, the you know, kind of getting out of my shell in that initial feeling that I got from finding out that I'm not alone, that has been duplicated, I think, 1000s, if not millions of times across this planet. Ever since I wrote the first line of code from life to dad, we've touched lives. We've touched millions of lives across the planet in the same exact manner.

And and when I realized, like, wait a second, my life does matter. Like, I'm glad I didn't give this up. Like these women have invited me, like, giving me the opportunity to share the story, to share, you know, kind of the value in the the talent and the skill that I bring to the world, like, like, you said, Casey show up. Yeah. And so I decided, like, like, no more Big Mac, no more Taco Bell, no more just I, I'm gonna radically change my life. Pass the vegetables. Yeah, it's like, I'm gonna stock up on vegetables. And like it was, it was gradual. I phased out meat. You know, hadn't given up the dairy at the time, but I had a good friend. Her name is Jennifer Argenti. She's a professional violinist and and surfer out in Santa, Monica, California, and we're all on kind of Facebook. And I, you know, we live, we live in a day and age where you can, kind of like, crowdsource, you know, wisdom. You know for sure, I posted on my Facebook I was like, you know, I'm, I really haven't been right. I'm thinking about kind of going vegetarian to clean up my life. And so here comes Jennifer Argenti on my Facebook wall, like, Hey, Ryan, you should really consider veganism. So I checked out a few podcasts, got online and checked a few documentaries, and, you know, it's kind of did my research on it. And I was like, Yeah, I had been on and off kind of flexitarian vegetarian ish back in my college days. But really, kind of gave it up when I got married. And, you know, you know my wife's, you know, you know my ex wife's in my in laws and my family, you know, Soul cooking, hello, I couldn't do it, you know, but, but, but I said, the more I did my research, I was like, Hey, this is something I'm going to try. I tried it. Shed a few pounds. Loved it, you know, my energy levels were high. My spirit started turning around, and I really started getting a much better reaction from people. So I said, Hey, I'm gonna keep this up, you know. And ultimately, I eliminated the dairy, and I don't know, been vegan ever since, well. And

Casey O'Roarty 38:33
it's amazing what happens to me, you know? Yeah, it's amazing what happens to our brain when we take care of our body. Yeah, yeah, right. It's a cascading

Ryan Hamilton 38:41
effect. Yeah. It's, in my case, the act of cleaning up my diet has cascaded out to all facets of my life, you know, from, you know, my health, my vitality. I just got my physical crystal clean. You know, my wife and my mom would be proud of me. She's been wanting me to get a physical over the past like three, four years. Three, four years. In fact, that's like, right for Mother's Day. Can you just go and get the physical? And we guys don't do that stuff, you know? Oh, I know. But, um, but, yeah, you know, Crystal clean, you know, it feels good, good, good. Heart rate, cholesterol is good, you know, I'm set. And, you know, it's really had a cascading effect on, you know, my life, my mind, my vitality, the presence and the energy that I bring to all, all of my work. You know, I've recently even incorporated, kind of like a daily jog, you know, stay active and healthy and and I bring, I don't know, I like, the vibrancy that I bring to people into the world right now is really kind of, you know, we're here to kind of share our gifts with the world, right and and to the degree that, you know, health and vitality can kind of supercharge that energy and that love that you bring forward to the world. Hey, rock out. You know, awesome.

Casey O'Roarty 39:56
Well, and so most of my list. Listeners from the research that I've the informal research that I've done, most of my listeners are moms, but I'm also guessing that Well, I know that most of them also have partners. And just to bring it back to the lives of dads, what where can listeners except for and I know that there are some dads that are listening. Hello, Kevin and David, and sometimes my husband listens, so I'm not excluding you, but where are some places that the mamas that are listening can get like there's life of Dad. What other resources could you throw out for moms for to turn their partners into the community of dads that you're talking about. And then there's the whole question of, like, how enjoyable it is for husbands to get advice from their wives about where they should be finding community. But whatever, we're just gonna let that go and say, Where are some other you know, life of dad is a great place to start. And I'm guessing there's probably some good resources there for dads. As far as communities go, absolutely,

Ryan Hamilton 41:08
I would say kind of first and foremost, like, you know, from the most informal kind of answer. And I'll say, you know, start over here, you know. And you use the term loosely, but like your poker buddies, like, yeah, you know, if you got, like, a set of friends, you know, a lot of you know me, in my case, you know, a lot of you know the guys I grew up in with, you know, 30 somethings, 40 somethings. Now, they're becoming fathers more and more lately. And so it's kind of more just kind of like staying in touch with your peer group that you've always had, right? You know, let's say first and foremost, like, never isolate yourself, always, never feel like you're alone. Always reach out, you know, to the extent that there are others around you that that can share your story, by all means, share never, never suffer in fear or never, kind of like, you know, isolate yourself. So that's, you know, first thing I would say, second thing, like you said, you mentioned life or dad, who I'd be remiss to not mention.

Casey O'Roarty 42:01
There will be links all over the show notes to life of Dad. Don't worry. Thank you.

Ryan Hamilton 42:06
Thank you, Casey. But I would also, you know, to reiterate, you know, kind of some, some earlier, you know, names that I dropped in the show. You know, Dad, 2.0 Summit, impeccable, impeccable event. You know, definitely check out those guys at Dad, 2.0 Summit, Doug French and John Pacini run an awesome event, annual event every year. They just had one in DC. They've had them, you know, San Francisco and New Orleans and Houston, Texas. They they kind of change the venue to kind of a major metro, different major metro every year. But I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's the main event every single year. That's where dads congregate to talk about the state of fatherhood in the world. Awesome.

Casey O'Roarty 42:48
Maybe they'll come to Seattle. That's where I am, hopefully,

Ryan Hamilton 42:52
Seattle, but, but, oh my gosh, because I've never been to Seattle. There you go. Be Awesome. Yeah, yeah. Hear good things. But so you know, Dad 2.0 Summit, definitely worth checking out if you're an at home dad, definitely check out national at home dad network, that's national at home dad network, they run awesome annual events. And you know, also kind of have different kind of events in meetup groups, are awesome local opportunities throughout the year and just awesome programming that specifically catered to the lives of dads who do stay at home with the children. So national at home dad network. I also mentioned city dads group, that city dads group started off as NYC dads group by some great gentlemen, Matt Schneider and Lance Sommerfeld, out in New York City, but they've expanded across the country. They've got, my gosh, I think about 15 or 16 groups scattered across major metros all across the United States. And so definitely check out city dads group for that. Perhaps there are meetups in your local area, you know, playdates and, you know, beer nights and just, you know, kind of various opportunities to get the, you know, the dads together, and, of course, the families together, yeah, for some, some good old fun. And then what am I forgetting? If you're kind of an online type, there's, you know, again life of dad. But also, if you're on Facebook, there's an awesome dad bloggers community called dad bloggers. You know that if you are on Facebook, you know, try to get in there just a bunch of dad bloggers. I think they're about, you know, a little over 1000 members in there, dads from across the planet who create content, they blog, they podcast, they produce video. They rock out on, you know, Instagram and nice, you know, Snapchat. Oh my gosh. Snapchat, the proliferation of platforms that exist nowadays, but Yeah, Dad, bloggers is definitely worth checking out

Casey O'Roarty 44:58
from. Well, I'm gonna put links to all of. These, everything you've mentioned in the show notes, and I'm so glad that you had time and could talk to me. Appreciate now if listeners want to follow you in particular, how can they find jury? Are you on Twitter and Instagram and all those other places that you just mentioned? Social media wise,

Ryan Hamilton 45:16
I am. I'm definitely on Facebook as myself. Ryan e Hamilton. I'm on Twitter at Ryan e Hamilton. I also do a Twitter called Daddy Dev. It's daddy Dev, daddy d, e, v, underscore Ryan, where I kind of rock out and teach my son how to code. That's another little cool, nice, but yeah. Then, of course, I'm on Instagram and Pinterest and oh my gosh, lately, Snapchat,

Casey O'Roarty 45:43
I just got on Snapchat too. I cannot really figure out how to use it, but I my daughter really wants to be on it, and so I'm like, You know what? I'm gonna figure out how to use it, and then I can have a better conversation about it. My daughter's 13, but it's kind of weird. It is. It is a time suck, a

Ryan Hamilton 46:01
little bit of a time suck, little bit of a learning curve, but I think I've quickly gotten over that, unfortunately, because it's, uh, I've caught the bug, and I, I think I have somewhat of a Snapchat problem right now.

Casey O'Roarty 46:12
The

Ryan Hamilton 46:18
wrong impression. But, uh, yeah, to your point about time sucking very various other kind of priorities I have right now that probably should be attended to, like launching the second coming of life of dad. You know, we got a new site coming up, kind of in redevelopment for the past year, two years now, and we're about to launch life of dad 2.0 with an accompanying app for Android and iOS. So yeah, check out soon. Well, we'll

Casey O'Roarty 46:45
be looking forward to that. Well, thank you again, Ryan, great to chat with you. I look forward to meeting you in person next month. Yes,

Ryan Hamilton 46:51
absolutely cool.

Casey O'Roarty 46:53
All right, we'll talk again soon. Yep. So there you have it. Friends. Ryan Hamilton on the podcast, isn't he fun? I had such a good time talking to him about the variety of things that we talked about. I hope you enjoyed listening. Check the show notes, because links for all those different resources that Ryan mentioned will be available there, including the dad 2.0 summit page, the National at home dads network, city dads group and that dad bloggers page on Facebook. Also, there are a variety of ways to follow the life of dad movement, their website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. They also have a podcast. I think it's really important that we invite all parents into conversations around parenting, and something really powerful happens when the conversation is amongst like minded people, people having common experiences. And I think when we're talking about dads, you know, the experience that they have with their kids is can be different than what we're experiencing as moms. So yeah, I really hope that this was helpful. If you loved it, feel free to share it with the men in your life, the dads in your life, and the moms. I would love to get your feedback. You can email me at [email protected], you can send me a review on iTunes, five stars. That'd be awesome. Also, don't forget, we have a thriving community over at the live in love with joyful courage page. I'm also on Twitter and Instagram, and that's really the only Oh, and I'm playing with Snapchat, so if you're on Snapchat, find me okay. Joyful courage on Snapchat Anyway, have a beautiful day, my friends. I hope that all things are easy for you and that the sun shines bright. Okay. Have a great week.

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