65 Tom Cullen on overcoming devastation and adapting to single parenting

“The best advice I can give myself as a dad is that love is the baseline. The kids will always have my love. They need to know that. They need to feel that. I can be upset, sad, embarrassed, furious, all those things. But there will always be that base love. Of course I’ll always love them no matter what. But the key is that they know and feel that, always.” Tom Cullen on DADicated Tom Cullen is a single dad and entrepreneur who lives with his two daughters who are six and eight in a small, rural town in New York. Tom shares an episode where he had to literally pack up and leave the family home with his two kids within a couple of hours. He has never returned to that home, became a single father and dramatically shifted his approach to both his business and parenting thereafter. We spoke together about how to establish family values, how to run family retreats and family meetings, the importance of constant re-evaluation of our own approach to parenting, goal setting for kids and how to show emotion to our children whilst shielding them from the unnecessary baggage we might be experiencing as adults. The most powerful takeaways for me as a dad were: - It’s very possible to turn devastation into empowerment and strength by conscious acts. - Teaching my kids how a new toy works is an incredible opportunity to connect, teach and bond. - Being a good dad is cool. Make it positive and engaging. - Teach goal setting in a playful way early on. To book my remote keynote on how we can empower dads in an effort to help facilitate family success please reach out via dadicated.com or simply use my LinkedIn (below). Thanks for listening, if you like this one, please share the session. GUEST SOCIAL MEDIA LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomascullen/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thomascullen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cullentj/?hl=en Philipp Hartmann (host): Web: www.philipp-hartmann.de LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipphartmann2 Dadicated: https://www.dadicated.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beingdad_official/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/philipphartmann