Episode 38 - D'Anthony Ward - Celebrating the Simple

 D'Anthony Ward (00:00):

Life just moves a little bit slower today than it did when I had times slow down, relax, re plan, reset the goals, and then go for it. When you hold onto those little moments and those memories like that, that's what helps you actually get through. And if we just have this whole community of people like me, who are trying to like influence an a to just observe, like what's going on and normalize this kind of behavior and normalize, understanding the small things in life like that is that success!

Young Han (00:37):
Hey guys, I'm young, a full-time dad and a full-time professional with the goal to become the best parent possible. The goal dad show is my journey interviewing fellow working parents aspiring to be both good at work and parenting. I'm gonna do this by gathering and sharing unfiltered perspectives from my guest. So join me as I research parenthood one interview at a time.  Anthony, Thank you so much for joining me on my show today. We appreciate you taking the time to meet

D'Anthony Ward (01:03):
Young, my guy. How are you this morning, man? Hope you're doing awesome.

Young Han (01:07):
I'm doing really awesome. You gotta tell me where you're at right now, cuz your background looks totally different.

D'Anthony Ward (01:13):
Yeah. The way life works out today we're at the, we're at the Hawks stadium. So I'm doing an event upstairs with my wife and I broke away for a minute, came down here and there's actually nobody here, like nobody, like I have this, this is my office today. I have the stadium to myself.

Young Han (01:30):
That's pretty, that's pretty baller. I love it. So what's that actual space? Is it like the concession area or what is that?

D'Anthony Ward (01:38):
Yeah, this is like one of the, like one of the suite level areas. So they're like there's suites down this way. There's like suites down that way. And if you're interested in watching a game at some point you go like right back there, you can see like some of the the rafters there. Ah yeah. Yeah. You go over there you go. Watch it. So even there's an office for today, man.

Young Han (01:56):
That's awesome. What a good life you live! That's actually a good segue right into it. So why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about what you do?

D'Anthony Ward (02:02):
Yeah, so I'm D'Anthony from the Dad Vlog. I have a Instagram page called dad_blog and a YouTube page. The dad vlog. And I focus a lot on family marriage and just focusing on the very small details of life. I have this slogan it's called appreciate the everyday and celebrate the simple. So my content it's just geared towards doing just that, finding a very small, most seamlessly mundane situations in your life and extracting the value out of that and using that to propel you your life and your family. So that's what that's, that's what I do is I create, I create content. I'm very, very, very focused on those very small things in life here.

Young Han (02:47):
What led you to that? That's a really a very specific thing. I mean, what how'd you find your, how'd you find your calling?

D'Anthony Ward (02:55):
Yeah, I think it started probably from like maybe a Christmas and, and when I was like 10, I actually, I was about six years old. There was a Christmas that we had. And at that time my dad was there. My mom was there. All my brothers were there and we had such a good time and we didn't, we didn't really do much. It's not like we went sledding or anything. We just stayed in the house, opened up presents and we socialized, hung out with each other. And the normalcy of that and the simplicity of that, like that just drove me to just say, this is, this is what I want. Like, this is where the actual value is. So now that I have my family, I'm like, okay guys, we can have an awesome time sitting in the living room. We can have an awesome time, like going to the store. You know, there's no experiences or the the, the experiences that you have is not geared towards, you know, skydiving or doing these just incredibly amazing things. The regular life that you live is complete value in that. So I think I found so much joy that day, that Christmas, that timeframe that I just wanted to, I just had that internally in me right now. I just try to provide that same thing for my family.

Young Han (04:09):
That's amazing, man. So tell me about your family. How, how many kids do you have and who are they?

D'Anthony Ward (04:14):
I got a lot of kids. You asked me. I I have two, I have two kids. I have Ty, she's my oldest, he's four years old. Then I have Aaliyah. She's 10 months old and there's myself. And then I have my, my wife, Rachel, who you would also see kind of time to time makes some appearances on that log. And we have a, we have like a, it's not necessarily a podcast, but we like to sit down and go over our marital experience. I, I call it being married. So we go over situations and topics that happen after that, that seem to just surprisingly come up. Coincidentally, after, after you get married and you say, I do. So we go over a lot of that kind of stuff. So that's where Rachel vocalizes a lot of her, her information and her experiences as far. So we're a family of four and that's probably where it's gonna stop.

Young Han (05:06):
Nah, no more. Huh? You're tapped out?

D'Anthony Ward (05:10):
You know what, here's the thing. All right. So I'm very heavy on the process of things, right? Yeah. And I feel like if you don't want to go through the process of something, you might as well cancel it off of your, because there's no way to get to a destination without the process. When it comes to kids, a kid can't come out of my, my wife, unless he gets pregnant. And that pregnancy stage is it's it's, it's, it's a lot, it's a lot. It was, it was, it was tough. It was tough for us. The first pregnancy was tough. We had a lot of situations that we had to battle and I think it was more socially than anything. So we were dating, got pregnant, then got married or dated, got pregnant, then moved into, into the house with each other men got married. So by a lot of people's standards, all of that stuff was just completely like as backwards to a lot of people. That's right.

Young Han (06:03):
That's right. Yeah.

D'Anthony Ward (06:04):
Right. Especially my, my wife you know, she was battling with, oh, well, how is this gonna look? And I'm battling with, oh, I want my wife to be comfortable. So we have this internal battle this whole time with our first pregnancy. 

Young Han (06:18):
That's what you meant by the social aspect was rough.

D'Anthony Ward (06:19):
Yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah. It was very rough. I mean, we didn't have like physical complications, but complications are not limited to just the physicality of things.

Young Han (06:28):
Yeah. It sounds like you're super mindful your podcast, I'm sorry, not your podcast, but your vlog is very, very mindful. It's about being mindful in the moment and it sounds like you're very philosophical about it. So I totally, I totally understand what you're saying by saying that, you know, complications are not just relegated to physical. Yeah, very cool, man. And then, so what's next with the vlog? Do you have any big projects you're working on with that?

D'Anthony Ward (06:50):
Well, right now I just kinda went through a kinda more focused branding. Just wanted to make sure that the message that I wanna send out is the message that being that's being received by the people that are watching, because, you know, I've dedicated a lot of my, my time and my life to creating these very short bite sized stories that are digestible. Like my story, isn't new. Like all of my friends are just like me. They family of three of family of four, they go to different stuff. They like to go to the bar and all that stuff. They are very mindful about what they say around their kids and their marriage and things. The only difference is I've just decided to put mine a story format so that when somebody's scouring the internet of things and they type in something like, oh, I'm pregnant or how to be a dad, or my kid is doing this. Maybe I'll pop up and maybe there'll be something that they watch within those four or five minutes of that video that I'll make them say. Ah, and it's very, very simple things. I don't try to get incredibly like complicated, which is why I just like to focus on the very, very small things and then just bites size by size on that. So the main project that I have is just really trying to be able to just tell, tell those stories. Yeah. And focus in, on telling those stories, very concisely for you guys.

Young Han (08:09):
That's exciting, man. Yeah. And it sounds like you did some focus, work on it to like help you even even get more precise more precise about who you are and why you're doing it.

D'Anthony Ward (08:17):
Yeah, because it fits because it, it, it fits me because like I'm very intentional with a lot of the things that I do. I'm very intentional with my marriage, with my family, with my friends. And I'm always looking for ways to just kind of improve because this is gonna sound cliche, but communication is like a huge, a huge thing you can over communicate. You can under communicate. I mean, you can perfect. We communicate, we just gotta get to that perfectly communicate portion. And if it takes a bunch of different avenues to try to get there and to identify what are you doing wrong? So for me, I think having eyes looking in at me and saying, Hey, what about this? What about this? That just gets my brain going and allowed me to fine tune that message. It's the same thing that happens if you have like a group of friends, right? You have a group of friends and your friends say, Hey, why are you doing that? Like you should have went to the store and got that. That's what your wife meant when she said I'm tired and maybe that's something I didn't see, but I have that community to get people around me to help sharpen me. And now I can be a better communicator and better person because I've surrounded myself with the right people that are able to help me see that stuff more.

Young Han (09:25):
That's awesome, man. I love it. And it also, I also love that you're a dad vlogger, cuz I, I mean, I will say that I when I first started this journey of building this I video podcast, it was actually really hard to find content from the dad's perspective. Yes. And, and then not only was it hard to find content for the dad's perspective, it was actually kind of hard to find content. When I was actually ex we were expecting our first child, like there was really very little content for dads. I mean, there was a really cool book. The, I think there was like the expectant husband. I can't remember what it was, but I was like having a hard time, even like harking back to the early days of dad, I'm like, oh man, they really should have more content for this. Maybe I should create it, but it's really great to meet someone like you because you're, you're, you're kind of like walking a thousand steps ahead of me. And my journey here is I start to create content for this space as well too. And obviously my stakes a little bit different. I'm I'm more talking about builders, right? I'm like talking to builders and, and it doesn't matter if it's dad or not. It's just about people building something and trying to create something and, and doing that while being a parent. But it is really interesting to hear from a dad's point of view what that looks like, cuz I don't think there's as much content from the dad's side. Have you noticed that?

D'Anthony Ward (10:36):
Have I? What absolutely. Absolutely. I have. And, but it was like a light switch, you know? Let me tell you, so when T was born, my first kid, when he was born, I was just like on fire. Like I was literally just was like, oh, am about to have a kid. Like soon as Rachel said she was pregnant. I was like, instantly, oh this is gonna be fun as hell. Like I, I was wasn't even blogging at the time. I just, I didn't know where I was gonna upload this stuff. I was just on my camera. Like, yo look what? Just pregnant.  Just in my phone, not even for a audience, like, Yes, I love it. Just proud dad mode. So then I decided to make the Instagram page and then I'm like, like this isn't a thing already. Like people aren't the necessarily doing this and I've been trying to rack my brain on why, why fathers aren't sharing their stories. Number one, maybe because it is, it is a lot of it is a lot of work to kind of figure out a way to, to appeal to people because there's one common thing about everybody. I mean, men are very straight forward. Like I love my kid and I love my kid and I show it by the actions that I do like right. You know, I go pick you up. I hang out with you. I give you hugs. Like just very results driven we are and results being results driven. Isn't very good for entertainment. Right. It's very straightforward. Everybody's video will be two seconds. I love my, it would be, it would be, I love my kid. And then look, I took him here and we're at the store for a lot of people. That's not very, that's not very enter that's right. Yeah. So for, so what I've tried to do is include those people who may not have a kid. Yeah. Include those people who may not be dads or are dads and talking on behalf of those people who are dads like, Hey, I just brought my son downstairs and he just pooped on the self after I told him not to, this is when I'm think can write at this moment. Why would he do that? Now what that kind of does is whoever's watching, it's giving them permission to be okay with thinking that same thing. Like, Hey, my kid pooped at his pull up too. And I don't know why he just did this randomly. And now they're like, Hey, that is exactly what I was thinking. And that guy said it out loud. So now, now we're kind of capturing attention that way. And if we just have this whole community of people like me who are trying to like influence an audience to just observe like what's going on and normalize this kind of behavior and normalize, understanding the small things in life like that is that success. So we absolutely more people in this field and doing this kind of stuff and, and just talking about their own experiences. I think people just may get a little intimidated by the storytelling aspect of it.

Young Han (13:25):
Yeah. You know? And so, so that's one aspect of success for your blog. Is there other aspects, do you have other aspirations and goals for it?

D'Anthony Ward (13:33):
Yeah. Yeah. So I do wanna work with a lot more just kinda likeminded like-minded brands. One of the brands that kind of started from the dialog is create dope humans. It's our family owned company that we have here and it's an apparel company. Actually. I have my hoodie on right now. It's like create dope. That's awesome. It's a create dope humans hoodie and a concept behind it is, you know, it's very process driven. So what are you doing to make somebody else's life better? Whoever that's somebody is, it could be your son, your mother, your, your, a group of kids, mentees or whoever that, whoever that is, what are you doing to pour into those people and whatever that is that you're doing, you're giving all that you have. And you're using that to create dope humans and make the people around you better with the things that you have. So it's not, it's not destination driven. It's very process, very process driven.

Young Han (14:31):
Yeah. And it sounds like it's also much more macro than just family. You're talking about everybody. Just how, how you life interact with everybody.

D'Anthony Ward (14:38):
Absolutely. I think when you, when you recreate dope humans, it just, you kind of gr parents gravitate towards their, their children because that's probably the closest that they, the closest relationship that they have, where they feel like they have that amount of influence. Right. When we have kids, you have this like canvas where you can help them grow and you can like shape them and mold them and that's creation to them. But I also have friends who are, who are back home that need a little bit more guidance for me. I have just a little something. I can't fix their whole life, but I have something that I can offer those people. And that's something, if I add something to that person, young adds something to that person. Everybody else adds something to these people. Now we're all have some sense of responsibility and, and making this person a little bit better. And that's how I feel like I am like, there's, there's not one person that just kinda influenced me. It was like, oh, that guy did something really cool. Or I've seen this person do something. And that person, I'm just a hodgepodge of all these elements that I've seen other people have. Right. So, and that's helping me be like a better person. So that's the concept behind it.

Young Han (15:47):
Yeah. And you're very mission driven. I can tell that you're like oozing, like a cause and a passion. It's like it's like driving you. It sounds like, can I ask what your kids think you do for a living? What, what do they think you do?

D'Anthony Ward (15:58):
I don't think that, I don't think Ty's knows what I do. I don't think he knows, but I mean, he knows that I make a lot of videos. Yeah. he, he knows that I'm on the phone a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And I usually just leave it to, Hey, Ty, you know, I'm working right now and now he's adopted that. So he'll come in the office and he'll say, are you working? You're working. Are you on a call? So I don't think he, he knows like what it is that I do. He just knows the word working and on a call. Yeah.

Young Han (16:32):
That's awesome. I, I think my my kid has like my older one she's five. And so she, well, she's gonna be five soon. And so she's starting to like put it together, but she really doesn't understand. Right. And it's like, yeah, no. And there have been, there have been many episodes where she'll walk in and like, you know, just like start talking to the guest and it's like, it's like amazing. Right. Just, Hey, who are you? What are you doing?

Young Han (16:53):
Which is fantastic. And it's awesome. But I do have to ask is, is your entrepreneurial journey here building this apparel brand? How has that been? I mean, I think vlogging and, you know, doing content creation is one thing because it's tied to being a parent, but being a building an apparel company, there must be some conflation of time with spending time with your kid versus building actual like,

D'Anthony Ward (17:15):
Well, all of business, all, all of it, all of it is because, I mean, there's two sides to this. So there's the, the dad vlog, which is, you know, media and, and branding. So we work with, there's a lot of contracts that come with just kind of working with different brands, deliverables, you know, report outs and things. And then you have this that's very, you know, product, product driven. So yeah, it does take a, a good amount of time. I think right now the message is on your hoodies and your t-shirts and your hats and things. But eventually I think what I wanna do or what I know, what I want to do is I kinda wanna be that go between. So if you are looking for mentees or you're looking for a mentor, I wanna be that person, that hub that connects those people. Like you're looking for this, you're looking for this. Let me try to connect you people. And let me try to validate both sides. This person is very determined. This person's very determined and that'll be a website where you can kind of go on and figure out what it is that you want. And hopefully we have those resources in place for you to get that thing that you're looking for. 

Young Han (18:22):
So as far as what kinda things.

D'Anthony Ward (18:23):
Yeah. So like mentoring is one I'm looking at some kind of business. I some business, the news. So like, if, you know, videography, if you wanted to be connected with somebody that does video.

Young Han (18:34):
Oh, like literally anything.

D'Anthony Ward (18:37):
Yeah. Yeah. We, yeah, we we're, we're scoping it down to kinda, you know, fit the, the branding of it, but like social work type stuff. Cool. Mentors, maybe like, you know, athletics thing like that, something that, where you really need the value of like a person and the Googling. It is not going to get you there. Like you need somebody to be that go between to say, Hey, who do I go to? I I'm going to college. I need a resume. I need my resume built out. I have no idea what I'm doing, or my kid is going to college. I didn't necessarily didn't have a resume or he's graduating. I didn't have a resume. I need somebody to help build kids. And I needed them to be credible and very passionate about it. Create dope humans.com. Let me look at that and see how that works out. So, so right now, so right now this phase is, you know, just kind of getting the brand out there with, with the, the apparel. So I, I have the supply chain pretty well, pretty well established in the fulfillment center. Pretty well established. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. So, and, and, and the product kind of sells itself to the right people. Right. And that's, that's, that's usually what I, what I'm shooting for here. Like the dad log, I, I don't need to be known by a lot of people like, I don't need millions of viewers or followers or anything like that. Like I just need the right amount of people and we've grown just slowly, which I'm completely okay with because the people that come, they stay and they interact, they interact with the content, they message me, I message them back. And we have like a relationship in the community that we have, they share that I didn't know, I share information from my experiences and hopefully like it, it helps them, like our, our engagement rate is maybe about nine or eight or 9% on, on, on, on social media, which is, you know, very, very high for our audience. Yes. So I'm okay with just having, you know, the very right people here. So getting a message out, like through the apparel is like phase one right here.

Young Han (20:38):
Yeah. And I love that. You're so transparent about all the things that you're building. It sounds like you're you're like an entrepreneur that's like building live. I have a weird feeling, but if I start checking out more of your content, you probably talk about your trials and tribulations about building business, as well as you do about being a parent. Huh?

D'Anthony Ward (20:53):
Well, I haven't gotten that far yet just because I'm, I'm building it while what they say, they building a plane while I'm flying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Young Han (21:02):
I've heard that saying.

D'Anthony Ward (21:03):
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm still trying to figure some of it out and it's, it's kind of hard to document everything and like actually do it. So at some point I think I'll get a level of confidence and I think it'll be valuable for people if they see kind of what I've been doing. But you know, I, I still have like a wife and like the kids and all that of stuff. And it takes a lot of, it takes a lot of time to do that. So I'm just trying to prioritize right now and just be very focused on the things that I need to be focused on at the moment.

Young Han (21:36):
That's a, that's a great point. You bring up because the reality is anytime you build something, it takes time and, you know, being a good dad also takes time. And so how do you, how do you think about being a good dad? What's it being a good dad for you?

D'Anthony Ward (21:49):
Well, it's just doing the best that you can with the information that you have available. But the trick to that is, is you have to go get the information that's available. Right. So now you know, the way I, I, I grew up, I think I can name a thousand things that I feel like my mom should have done differently, but the reason why that's probably not fair is because she was doing exactly what she thought that she needed to do at the time. Right. I could have said, you know, I can say, I think I should have got exposed more to sports or finances. Yeah. Or could I say 2020? Yeah. And then if you, if you look back, my mom was a single mom raise and three boys, you know, are a minimum, minimum wage job who, wow. Who's gonna take me to basketball practice across town. And who's gonna take me to this AAU team over here and who's going to, who's gonna pay for it. Oh. But by the way, by the little brother gets outta school at two o'clock, who's gonna go get him. And those are not things that I really understood that 14, 15, it's like, I wanna go play basketball. You know, I wanna go be a part of this. And to me it sound like the answer was no, but as I've gotten older, the answer was no, the answer was, I don't know how to do it all. Yeah. I can't, I don't know how to do it all. So my objective here is just the continue on with that. Just, just now I just have more information, right? I'm in a, I'm in a different position. So in 30 years, my kid may say the exact kind of stuff that I'm saying about by mom. Like why didn't my dad do X, Y, and Z. And as well, son, I was doing the best that I can. I didn't know it at the time. So whatever your, whatever your your process is, whatever, whatever you can focus on and try to like, just kind of drive in, like, that's what you should be. That's what you should be doing there.

Young Han (23:45):
Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Doing the best that you can with what you have and you sound like you kind of play it, play it as best you can day by day to a certain degree too.

D'Anthony Ward (23:53):
Yeah. That's I mean, that's, that's what it is. That's what it is because, yeah. And there's so many like resources out now where you can kind of go and read up on just the culture of things. Like, what are parents doing? Like, what are people doing? Like what, how are parents sending their kids to school? Are they like homeschooling? How are they, how are they disciplining? And I think where people get wrapped up is like, it's also, you can also get like information overload, right? Like, that's right. Okay. You should put your kid on pun when he pees in his underwear at five years old or four years old. Okay. I'm gonna do that. Then another article says, Nope, don't do that. You need to do, I don't know if you heard this word before gentle parenting, you need, you need to be a gentle parent and you have this information overload thing. And I think a better strategy is just to absorb the content that you see and a absorb the culture and then use what works best kind of for you because it's all trial and error anyways. So when you read these, when you read these articles and you take in this information, I mean, you're not taking in and say, I'm gonna do this exact same thing. Like you're a robot, cuz you're a person human. You, you, you make adjustments a million adjustments in your, a day based on your surroundings and parenting is the same thing. Right.

Young Han (25:11):
That's awesome, man. That's a great answer. Yeah. I love that. So let me let me fire off some rapid fire questions. I like to ask every guest here.

D'Anthony Ward (25:19):
Let's go.

Young Han (25:20):
You, you ready for this D'Anthony?

D'Anthony Ward (25:20):
Let's go, man. . . . 17!

Young Han (25:22):
Hahahaha, what advice, What advice do you have for other parents and soon to be parents?

D'Anthony Ward (25:33):
I think that you can get wrapped up a lot in all the responsibilities of parenting, especially if you're a soon to be parent, that means you may be pregnant. So there's a lot of doctor's appointments. There's a lot of scans there's oh, we need, you know, items, finances are tight and that stuff can get like very overwhelming. But if you just focus on that particular moment and just, and just realize, Hey, there was nothing here before and we are literally witnessing like a person, like kind of being born and I'm doing is with you with with my partner that right there, that's a memory that's gonna last for a very long time. And that's what you should hold onto because when you hold onto those little moments and those memories like that, that's what helps you actually get through, if you're in the middle of like a financial, you know, issue, or, you know, you just, you gotta run to this doctor or it's to this specialist and all that. Actually just kinda slowing down kind of breathing a little bit and just saying, Hey, we're doing all of this because we're expecting like a kid that you can raise yourself that you can pour into, that you can correct anything in your head that you think is wrong when you actually slow life down and look at it from that perspective in the middle of your chaos. That will honestly just everything else just seems like very small tasks to get through.

Young Han (26:58):
Nice. Yeah. And that's, that actually might answer the next question as well, but I'll ask it anyways in case there's some new color you wanna add to it. Yeah. If you can go back and tell yourself one thing before having kids, what would you tell yourself?

D'Anthony Ward (27:09):
The art of discipline is, is, is very is a very interesting thing. I think growing up and before I had kids, there was only two methods of discipline. There was whooping or banking or however your culture says it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was put on punishment. Like those were the only two things. And I think that limited my view a lot because with Ty, some of those things, those things don't work. Like, I mean, put 'em on punishment, put 'em in a, in a room that necessarily doesn't work. Sometimes taking some things work sometimes saying ties. That was incredibly not nice. And I'm disappointed sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn't sometimes a little more basing your voice and you say something like this and you say ties, don't you do that again? Sometimes that works. And I don't think I had that mindset toward diversity beforehand. I just went thinking you get a whooping or you get put on punishment. One of those two has to work because those are the two things that I experienced. Right. So if I experienced those things, when I was much younger, you know, that's all, that's, that's pretty much all that I know. Right.

Young Han (28:22):
Yeah. So now now that I, that's what you're talking about, collecting information.

D'Anthony Ward (28:24):
Yeah. For sure. Yeah.

Young Han (28:25):
Yeah. Diversifying your knowledge base. Yeah,

D'Anthony Ward (28:27):
Absolutely. So now I think what I would tell myself is like, Hey, just look at some different methods of things. Like, you know, denial, denial is, you know, I like to say denial breeds discipline. So when you deny them, certain things, not the same things, you deny them, certain things. And certain situations like the, that helps discipline that helps discipline them. And that helps get them like on just taking the iPad away. They know that they're eventually gonna get it back and you know that you're gonna give it back. Right. But figuring out another way to do it. And that's the creativity that, that you kinda, that you kind of need what works for this particular child.

Young Han (29:04):
Yeah. That's awesome. And then what's the most surprising thing that you learned about yourself after becoming a parent?

D'Anthony Ward (29:10):
It wasn't, it really wasn't until after like my daughter was born. Mm it's. It's like when she was born. So when T was born, I was just straight. Bliss just, nothing could burst my bubble no matter what you said, no matter what I read. Yeah. But as I got around with like more of my friends and I saw their experiences, I saw like how much, like a blessing and how complicated the birthing process can be and how, how it is not promised. Like, just because you're pregnant doesn't mean you're gonna have a baby just because you give birth doesn't mean that you're gonna have just a healthy child. Right. So I think that with ties, it was just straight BLIS. Oh yeah. We're having a baby. Oh yeah, this is great. But then our second child, I was much more educated, had a lot more ex I went even say much more educated, but I just had a lot more information at my disposal from talking to different friends and things. And what it did was it made me a little bit more appreciative of different situations and a little bit more appreciative of kind of the process of things. When my daughter was born, I had a detachment, even before she was born, I had like a detachment to her. I was afraid to attach myself to her because I'm like, well, what if the pregnancy doesn't work out? And now, you know, I have, I have this situation where, oh yeah, I'm rubbing on, you know, Rachel's belly and you know, I'm kissing a belly and I'm just attachment now, what if something goes wrong? So now immediately what happened is my, the second pregnancy, I was kind of detached from the whole thing, because this is what's in my head. If I don't get, if I don't kiss the belly, if I don't rub the belly, that creates a barrier. So that way, if something happens is helping shield me from pre whatever preemptively. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, if I'm just tightening my stomach waiting for a blow so that when it comes, I'm like, huh, well, I was expecting that. So it's okay. And what that ended up doing and I'm, and this is for like nine months, you know, since the day she was, she found out that she was pregnant. So this thinking the same thought process over and over and over again, that, that changes. It changes yourself. What do they say? It takes 30 days to make a habit. So try thinking the same type of things for eight, nine months in a row that changes you as a person. I don't care what it, what anybody says. So now now when a Leah was born I kind of had to reattach myself, but while trying to reattach myself, I got like more connected, more like in tune with like my emotional side of things. Life just moves a little bit slower today than it did when I had Ty. Cuz like I said, Ty was just my first born was just on team. Hey, what's up guys? This is how in this, everything is all cool. And now in my life now it's like, Hey, this is an awesome moment. And I'm just showing you guys that I'm just having an awesome time in this very, in this very moment because I'm just more appreciative of just what I had. So wow. Long story, long story short. I'm just, it just taught me to be more appreciative of my situation. Be more appreciative of the family that I have around here and just be a little bit more vulnerable with like myself and my wife and you know, anybody else who who's listening. So vulnerability is the, is the short answer to that.

Young Han (32:41):
That's a great answer, man. I love it. Next question. Do you have a favorite book or a business book that you've really leaned on to help guide you?

D'Anthony Ward (32:50):
I kinda do. Yeah. there's this book it's called 48 laws of power. Have you heard of that one?

Young Han (32:56):
Oh yeah. His name's like Robert Green, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have heard of it. It's a really good book. I really do like that one.

D'Anthony Ward (32:59):
I didn't know what it, I didn't really know what it was like going towards but as you read it, like there's just so much stuff in there where you're just like, wow, that makes complete sense. One of the, one of the quotes I like in there never go past the mark in which you set for victory. So it's so it's telling you like, okay, once you've established your, your definition of a goal, like get there, you don't necessarily have to go past it because in the books term, like going past it is grieve. Now you can set another, you can set another milestone and get it towards that one. But when you say, oh, I wanna make, you know, a hundred thousand dollars, you make a hundred thousand dollars and now your process is gone because your process was there to make a hundred thousand dollars or your process was there to like, you know, get married or get a girlfriend or whatever the case may be. Now you need to re plan regroup and then set another mark, which means you plan for it all. Once you get greedy and you're just like, oh, just gonna make it a hundred thousand dollars. Oh I can do the same thing. I'm just make another $200,000 in the process is different because you're at a different stage. So now you have to regroup, go towards everything. So that's like my favorite one. It's like reminding you to like slow down, relax, re plan, reset the goals and then go for it!

Young Han (34:24):
Oh my gosh, you're gonna crush the world, man. I love your strategy and your mindset. Good for you. Good for you. That's really good Conceptualizing of, of, of programmatic approach. Right? Being very, very tactical about setting goals and being realistic about the, the systems that you're building to get there. Good for you, man. That's really Sage for sure. So when you're not, when you're not being an awesome dad creator and you're not building up this awesome new apparel business and being a super dad what does de Anthony do for fun? What, what's your, what's your stick? What do you do for hobbies and, and, and downtime?

D'Anthony Ward (34:56):
Well, you know, I like to get my butt whooped and Madden a lot. Pretty much I pretty much suck at that game, but it's still fun. Yeah. You, I still like going over there, beat the 40 points by these 18 year old, these 18 year olds. I do a lot of like just kind of like mindless stuff. A lot of the times, like I do play, I do play sports. But like one of my favorite past times is like random YouTube videos that just has, that has nothing to do with anything that like, you probably would associate with me.

Young Han (35:34):
Yeah. Just check out. Let your mind rest.

D'Anthony Ward (35:37):
Yeah. There's this there's this, there's this one thing it's called. I don't know the, I don't know the, the channel, but it's like mouse trap Mondays. And like this guy just like shows you like these ancient mouse traps that like come from like the 18th century or something, or he always has like a new one and it happens like every week, and it's like, how do you even know all these contraptions even exist? And it's just so like mindless to me, but it's interesting. So it's still like spark, it still like sparked something and it's just, it's just a weird thing. I have it all like at night and my, and that's awesome. My wife she's, she's just always like, what, what are you watching over there? 

Young Han (36:21):
Yeah, I relate to that, I relate to you way more than you even realize. Cause I think that I'm like very similar to the sense that I can't turn my mind off and I'm constantly go, go, go. And like constantly thinking about new things and the new ways of doing things that when I do downtime, I also look for mindless things sure. That I can like just kind of like shut it down for a little bit. It, so I might actually go check that out. I'll go Google Mouse Trap Mondays.

D'Anthony Ward (36:39):
Try to see, Hey listen, mouse trap Mondays. All right. I don't know who that guy is. I, I don't, I don't know. They got amazing channel, but I tune in.

Young Han (36:48):
Okay. That's awesome. Yeah. I love it. I'll check it out. Well, de Anthony, thank you so much for taking the time to be on my show, man. This was amazing conversation and I'm so grateful that you're being a voice for dad, all the dads out there and, and you know, really having these conversations that are gonna help normalize more of these things and just being vulnerable enough to share your journey and experience. Yeah. And then really cool. Very, very exciting about the brand and mission that you're trying to build around the repair company. It's it's really good. It's really nice to get to understand the meat and potatoes of it.

D'Anthony Ward (37:16):
Awesome.

Young Han (37:17):
And, and understand what you're doing. So, so thank you for the time man.

D'Anthony Ward (37:19):
Young, I appreciate it. Oh, I do wanna say one thing real fast, please. My wife and I we've partnered with penguin house and we're creating a book. It's a 10 chapter book on pregnancy and how to work together as a team. You and your partner. 

Young Han (37:40):
Perefct, remember I was telling you that I was like, even during the pregnancy part, there was like only one book I could find?

D'Anthony Ward (37:43):
Right? Yeah. That's awesome. And this is meant, and it's meant to be very practical. It's not any like medical advice and it's like a straight shooter. Like I told the, I told the team, I said, Hey guys, we're gonna do this. I'm gonna need to talk very freely. All right. And I'm gonna need to talk just it's like you hear me talking here today. I don't want any fluff straight to the point like this is, this is pregnancy really like, this is what this is. This is especially from a guy's perspective or the, or the partner's the support partner's perspective. Like it's a completely different world. And I wanna be able to share that. And just every line, I just want to be like value added. And I wanted you to be able to like, relate to what I'm saying or understand that you can relate to it and what you get to that portion. So ah, that's awesome. Yeah. So, but the end of this year, the end of 2022 we should, we should have that out for you guys. And just if you follow the Instagram page and stuff, we'll be talking about it a little bit more. This is actually the first time I've said that out loud publicly actually.

Young Han (38:49):
Oh wow, thats so special, Well, we'll definitely link to link to the Instagram page so people can follow along if they're they want to get it at the end of the year. And then obviously at the end of the year when it launches I'll I can always update it. So it reach out to as well. So for sure. But that's amazing cuz I, we were just talking about that. How like even during the pregnancy portion, there's no content for dads, you know, like, so that's a really great man. Yep. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing and thank you again for the time and thank you for being the voice for dad's. As you can continue to go down your content creation and business and opportunity.

D'Anthony Ward (39:18):
I appreciate it, man. Thanks Young. Thank you.

Young Han (39:19):
Yeah, take care. All right. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Girl Dad Show, we really hope you enjoyed that interview. And as always, please take a moment to review, rate and subscribe. We'll see you next time.