Most of us picture fatherhood on a fairly predictable timeline. Finish school, start a career, meet someone, start a family. Chris Stream's path looked nothing like that.

Chris spent his twenties and thirties building his career and searching for the right person to build a life with. He did not get married until his late forties. And when he did, it came with more moving pieces than most people navigate in a lifetime.

His wife Brooke was a widow. Her daughter Campbell had never known her biological father. Chris became an instant dad to a five year old while simultaneously marrying for the first time and navigating the legal complexities of adoption. Then came a premature baby who spent three months in the NICU. Then a son born into a family that was still finding its footing.

He will turn sixty this year. His son is eleven.

In this conversation Chris talks about what it means to be an older father, the deliberate advantages it brings, and the challenges nobody tells you about. He and Brooke had the financial stability to invest in experiences over things, but that created its own parenting challenge: how do you build resilience and work ethic in kids when it would be easy to just give them everything?

He also talks about parenting a child with Tourette's without defaulting to medication, why he has always talked to his kids like adults rather than children, the weekly family ranking system he uses to keep his kids competing for his attention, and how his son Calvin at eleven years old articulated something profound about the difference between the family you are born into and the family you build.

Chris is a college professor, a Las Vegas native, and one of the more unconventional dads we have had on the show. His path to fatherhood was anything but typical. What he built when he got there is worth hearing about.

New episodes every Wednesday. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts by searching Dadical or visit dadicalpodcast.com

The last few episodes of the Dadical Podcast have been heavy. Stillborn children. Military deployments. Infertility. The loss of a spouse. The loss of a father at twenty years old.

This one is different.

Scott Schlofman is a financial adviser and father of four in Phoenix, Arizona. He has senior twins, a freshman, and a seventh grader. By his own admission he is just a regular dad. He is wrong about that.

In this conversation Scott shares some of the most practical and immediately applicable fatherhood wisdom we have had on the show. He talks about the barber chair and why he has cut his kids' hair their entire lives and what that captive audience has given him in terms of real conversation with his teenagers. He shares his framework for teaching his kids about dating, a cereal analogy that will make you laugh and then make you think. He talks about how he pulled his son out of school for half a day to run the actual numbers on what it costs to live independently and why that conversation matters more than any lecture ever could.

He also gets into the tension between high expectations and realistic parenting, why words matter more than most parents realize, and why loving their mom is still the single most important thing a dad can do for his kids.

Scott co-hosts a sales podcast with previous Dadical guest Mike Williams and has been doing it weekly for six years without missing an episode. He showed up to this conversation having listened carefully to previous episodes and built on them throughout. That preparation shows.

This is a conversation about the tactical side of intentional fatherhood. The systems, the habits, the specific things you can do differently starting tomorrow.

New episodes every Wednesday. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts by searching Dadical or visit dadicalpodcast.com

Every day you pull into the garage after a long day at work. You're worn out. You have emails to return and tasks that slipped through the cracks. And you have a decision to make before you walk through that door.

Burke Williamson knows that decision better than most.

Burke grew up in a small town in southern Utah as the youngest of four boys. His dad was a state champion wrestler, an all-state football player, and the kind of man who showed up to every game, every match, and every moment his kids needed him. He coached their teams not because he had to but because being there was what mattered most to him.

Burke was twenty years old and serving a church mission in the West Indies when his dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Six months later he was gone. Burke was on the other side of the world and couldn't get home to say goodbye.

In this episode Burke shares what it taught him to lose his father before he ever became one himself. He talks about the eighteen summers we get with our kids and what it means to make them count. He shares why he refuses to give his family the scraps that are left after a long day at work. And he talks about the choice he makes every single day to live a life of hope rather than anger, even after losing both of his parents to cancer.

Burke's dad may not have been perfect. But he was the perfect dad for Burke. And that is who each of us can be for our kids. Warts and all.

Every December the community where Burke grew up hosts the Paul Williamson Invitational Wrestling Tournament. That is the legacy of a man who showed up.

New episodes every Wednesday. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts by searching Dadical or visit dadicalpodcast.com

What does a father give his son that he doesn't even realize he's giving?

Mike Williams has a family motto. Three words his grandfather used to yell from the baseball dugout. Three words etched on his grandfather's tombstone. Three words that became the way Mike raised his four kids and the way his oldest son Skyler now lives his life.

Run it out.

Skyler Williams lost his wife Kimber to cancer two years ago. Three months from diagnosis to gone. He is raising two kids alone. His trailer burned down last month. And when his friends at lunch asked him how he could be so calm about it, his answer was simple.

It's just a thing.

In this episode Seth Stoker sits down with Mike and Skyler Williams for the first father and son conversation in Dadical Podcast history. Mike shares how he deliberately built a family culture through man trips into the desert, commission only bets on himself, and a Mickey Mouse tuxedo at a Valentine's dance. Skyler shares what it looks like to draw on everything his dad gave him while navigating the hardest season of his life.

This episode is about the lessons a father passes down without knowing if they will ever be needed. And what happens when they are.

If you have a father in your life who gave you something you didn't fully appreciate until it was tested, this one is for you.

New episodes every Wednesday. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts by searching Dadical or visit dadicalpodcast.com

Jordan Phillips didn't have a traditional path to fatherhood. Married at nineteen, he joined the military four months later and spent three of his first five years of marriage overseas on two deployments. When he and his wife Amy finally started trying to have kids, the doors kept closing. Years of infertility. Consultations, surgeries, and procedures. A failed round of in vitro. And a growing question neither of them wanted to ask out loud: is this ever going to happen for us?

It wasn't until they stopped forcing it and opened themselves to adoption that everything changed. Doors that had been slamming shut for nearly a decade flew open almost overnight. They adopted their daughter Ella in the fall of 2012. And then, at Ella's first birthday party, Amy started acting completely unlike herself. The doctor's explanation stunned them both.

In this episode Jordan talks about what two military deployments taught him about marriage, what nearly ten years of infertility taught him about releasing control, and what his dad's habit of taking the road less traveled on family vacations taught him about the kind of father he wanted to become.

He also shares the mindset shift that changed everything: from asking why is this happening to me, to asking why is this happening for me.

None of it was the plan. All of it was the path.

New episodes every Wednesday. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts by searching Dadical or visit dadicalpodcast.com

Most men, when they go through something devastating, put on a mask. They push it down, tell themselves they dealt with it, and keep moving forward.

Taz Harding did exactly that. And for six years it cost him more than he realized.

In this episode Taz shares one of the most honest accounts of grief, marriage, and fatherhood we have had on the Dadical Podcast. Ten months into his marriage, he and his wife Kirsten found out they were pregnant. What followed was six weeks of bed rest, multiple blood transfusions, and ultimately a stillbirth at twenty weeks. And instead of dealing with it, Taz did what most men do. He put on the mask.

What he did not expect was how far that mask would reach. Into his marriage. Into his relationship with himself. Into six years of compounding resentment and emotional distance from the woman he loved most.

This episode is also about what happens when you finally take it off. Taz shares how a men's retreat a few months ago became the catalyst for the most honest season of his marriage and his life. He talks about what it means to feel seen, what vulnerability actually looks like for a man, and how the lessons his own father taught him are shaping the kind of dad he is determined to become for his three boys.

If you are carrying something you have not dealt with, you know what it is. We hope this conversation gives you a reason to start.

New episodes every Wednesday. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts by searching Dadical or visit dadicalpodcast.com

What does it look like when life hands you fatherhood before you feel ready?

For Clayton Bowen it looked like calm.

Clayton became a dad at twenty seven in circumstances nobody would have planned. Unexpected pregnancy. COVID lockdown. Doctor visits over FaceTime. A C-section during a global pandemic. Three kids in five years. Career changes, a historic Texas freeze that displaced his family from their home for months, and all of it navigated alongside a partner he had known for less than a year when it all began.

And through every single one of those moments Clayton never panicked. Not once.

In this conversation Clayton talks about growing up with a dad who knew everyone in his small Texas town and what that taught him about kindness, community, and what it means to show up for people. He shares what it felt like to find out he was going to be a father unexpectedly and why his response in that moment set the tone for everything that followed. And he talks about the one thing that drives everything he does as a dad right now — making sure his kids don't just know they are loved but actually feel it in a way they will carry with them long after he is not in the room.

Becoming a father is not a decision that will make your life easier. Clayton's story is proof that sometimes stepping up and making the hard choice is exactly what we need to do to live the life we actually want to live.

New episodes every Wednesday. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts by searching Dadical or visit dadicalpodcast.com

Here you go:

What if fixing your kids weaknesses is the wrong strategy as a dad?

Dave Cameron spent his career leading consumer segmentation for the Nielsen Company and teaching predictive analytics at the University of Chicago. He applies that same analytical thinking to fatherhood, and the results might surprise you.

Dave grew up in a blue collar neighborhood outside Detroit where most of the men on his block worked for Ford Motor Company. He didn't fit in. His dad recognized that early and made a decision that changed everything.

In this conversation Dave shares how that experience shaped the way he raised his own two kids. A son who walked away from a 3.7 GPA and a 95th percentile ACT score to pursue a full time acting career. A daughter who took a four mile walk with her dad during COVID to work through one of the hardest seasons of her life. Both of them turned out to be self reliant, hardworking adults with a strong sense of who they are.

Dave also opens up about a moment he would give anything to have back, losing his temper with his son over a lie and what it cost him in trust, and what it actually took to earn it back.

This is a conversation about recognizing your kids strengths, playing into them instead of fixing their weaknesses, teaching work ethic without lecturing, and staying present even when life is pulling you in every direction.

New episodes every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss a conversation.

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What does it actually mean to be a father? Not just to show up, but to show up with intention?

In the inaugural episode of Dadical, host Seth Stoker sits down with Mike Lamb, a father of four and soon-to-be retiree from San Antonio, Texas, for an honest and deeply personal conversation about what fatherhood has taught him over the last three decades.

Mike opens up about growing up with a complicated relationship with his own father, and how a second father figure, his father-in-law Gary Payne, stepped in at exactly the right moment to teach him about finances, integrity, and what it means to be a man. It is a story about the unexpected places mentorship can come from, and the ripple effect one man's wisdom can have across generations.

From keeping Sherrie home to raise their kids, to building a culture of faith and hard work in their household, to navigating the delicate balance of parenting adult children, Mike shares the wins, the regrets, and the lessons he wishes he had learned sooner.

And then there is the moment that stopped us both in our tracks. When Mike's daughter Sierra told him she wanted to marry a man who treated her the way he treated her mom, it became clear that the most important thing a father can do for his children has nothing to do with money, career, or achievement. It has everything to do with how he loves their mother.

This is a conversation about legacy, intentionality, and what it looks like to father with purpose. Whether you are a brand new dad or your kids are already grown, there is something in this episode for you.

Subscribe to Dadical and join the conversation at dadicalpodcast.com