Introducing The Daddious Show

Welcome to the Daddious podcast! So today is episode one of the Daddious podcast and with it comes the official launch of Daddious. I have specifically chosen today because it is my wedding anniversary. We have been married for six years today and it is a great way to acknowledge this special moment and start something new and exciting.

This show is something that I've wanted to do for quite some time. I've been working on and off on this for about a year now so I thought it was high time to get my voice and ideas out there.

So what is Daddious you might be asking? The mission of Daddious is to create a community of supportive dads. It's a safe place to share our fatherhood experiences, our strategies to create a balanced life and a place that helps dads to be the best version of themselves for their children and partners that they can be.

Let's start with the name Daddious in both its origins and meanings. Obviously, it had to have "dad" somewhere in the name thus the "Daddi" part and the word "ous" is a South African slang word that is essentially used to describe a man, a guy or a bloke. Its origins is from Afrikaans and essentially I thought that it sounded quite cool as well as it being something that I use in my daily vocabulary. I thought bringing the two words together would be catchy and embody the mission I am undertaking.

So me being me, I went down a little bit of a Google search rabbit hole to figure out exactly what Daddious meant to me. What I've come up with are four words that are relevant to Daddious and what it stands for. These are enthusiasm, versatility, agility, and unconventionality.

So let me break these down a little bit more and give you an idea of why I settled on these four words. I feel that when you're looking at a name for something it has to connect with you, shout to you, it's got to kind of fall into what your mission is.

So if we start with the word enthusiasm it really is central to what being a dad means to me. You know being a dad is a journey, it's a change to your life. When you fall pregnant, and you guys really wanted to have a kiddo then it's something that brightens up your life, as you then move through the various phases of preparing for the birth and post this, becoming a "real" father and so on then I think you've got to be enthusiastic about being a great dad. You have got to want to be a great dad. For me being enthusiastic about being a dad was a major part of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be as a father figure.

Next up is versatility which simply is the ability to adapt. Life has changed drastically with the arrival of our son. We've gone from being my wife and me, with a dog and a cat to being a wife, husband, a dog, a cat, and now, a little dude. So you have got to have the ability to adapt to the situation at hand. You have got to change your life, you have got to change the way you see things and how you manage certain aspects of your life.

Moving onto agility where this covers both the physical but also focuses on the need to be agile in your thinking. You have got to be able to move quickly, change ideas with speed and do all of this to ensure that you can be the best that you can be.

Now the word unconventionality or unconventional is an interesting one because you have this idea of what parenting and fatherhood should be. You might have read a lot of books, and have some experience on some level because hey, you have been a child yourself, being brought up by your parents. Very quickly you realise that things have changed. Parenting methods have evolved and therefore you have got to be able to try different techniques to have a balanced life to be able to parent your child and be a great partner.

Unconventional also applies to my views on health and fitness. If you were to look at mainstream views on health and fitness, my approaches are slightly unconventional. The thing is these approaches work for me and my work for my clients. I think there is an opportunity to bring in a different approach and assist fathers in looking at their health, wellness and parenting unconventionally. At the end of the day, I want to create a community of dads where there is support, where they can go and be able to ask for help, get health and wellness tips, share their experiences in fatherhood and just carry on being the best that they can be not just as a parent, but the best version of themselves as cliched as that might sound.

ssentially got rediagnosed in: 2014

So health and fitness for me have been a huge part of my life to ensure that I'm staying as healthy as possible. The biggest goal and the biggest contributor that health and fitness have given to me is that it allows me to ensure that I can play with my son not just now but also in 20 years' time.

I will be able to move and enjoy life and that is what I am working towards. Essentially, I wanted to ensure that my health, my mental health, my physical health are both at their optimal levels for me to ensure that I can be there for my wife and my child. I've been in fitness for quite some time, I've worked as a personal trainer for a good part of my working career. I've also been lucky enough to work with amazing people in the industry, grow my own business, and educate myself to the point where I would like to ensure that I can help others. Helping them create goals for themselves around being healthy, being fit, having the right mindset, enjoying life, and again, essentially becoming the best person for their children that they can be.

That's essentially where Daddious has all come from. Within my professional life, I have discovered and used several pillars or foundations that I base my business around. I realised that these pillars would be a great foundation for Daddious. These are movement, nutrition, mindset, recovery and support.

So I'm going to go into each one just so you have a better understanding of how this applies to Daddious as a whole. So let's start with movement. Now, a lot of people ask what is movement in the context of my work and methodology? What can I do to get moving? But let's step back a little bit. If you think about your life, if you are sitting in a corporate job, then the majority of your day sees you sitting. Then, in evenings, you're in bed, you're sleeping so for most of your life you are sedentary.

Our need for movement, over many, many years, have gone from being extremely active to being extremely inactive. We've lost mobility, we've lost flexibility. Essentially, we have put our careers first and the stresses of our lives are every present which means we haven't been taking care of ourselves. So for me, movement or introducing movement is important for your health. It's important to get stronger, to be more flexible and be more mobile and essentially have movement with no pain.

So when I talk about movement, it can be anything from aiming to go to get a goal of 10,000 steps per day or doing 10 squats or 10 push-ups per day or doing a 45-minute workout or training towards a marathon or triathlon. At the end of the day, finding what movement works for you is what is optimal and what is needed in your life. Not everyone wants to go into the gym and lift weights. Not everyone wants to get on a bicycle and cycle for hours on hours. It's about finding what makes you happy. What gives you a feeling of accomplishment and what makes sense at the end of the day.

As I said earlier doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be on a treadmill or lifting weights or spending hours upon hours in the gym eating boring meals. For me, it's about finding what works for you and enjoying it. Having fun and getting some excitement out of it is a real win.

The next one is nutrition. Now, mainstream health and fitness is generally about six-pack abs, looking your best, no matter the cost. For me, my unconventional approach to nutrition isn't something that works for everyone. I think it is the right approach and that approach is to create a sustainable approach to nutrition. You know food is something that we have to consume, we have to eat every single day, we have to make sure that we are eating in ways that mean we can operate and our bodies can continue living in a great way.

In a world that is so fast-paced with there being so much convenience out there, we forget that nutrition or eating healthily is the thing that we should focus on. And for me, my approach is to help individuals create healthy nutritional habits, enjoy food and do so in ways that help in the long term. So let's enjoy it like movement, you've got to find what works for you, and create habits around it that will make your life easier and better. On the plus side, the goal is to make you healthier, so you can live longer.

I've always felt that if you have a good approach to your nutrition and movement then you are going to create these habits not just for yourself, but for your family and your children too. And if sustainable, they are going to help you live longer, help your kids live longer, and help all those around you have a healthier relationship with food.

The next pillar that I like to focus on is mindset. I'm sure you guys have heard so much about this over the last couple of years it may make you feel a little ill. It is a word that has been put out quite a bit and is a bit of a buzzword on social media and all over the place. What is this about? Ensuring that you have a good mindset is learning to manage the job of being a dad and having a good work-life balance. Being as optimal as possible, and having or creating the right mindset to ensure that you give it your best. You are your child's hero and that's a pretty hard thing. Creating good mindset habits and getting into the right mindset space eventually makes things easier. So for me, mindset is all about getting in the right frame of mind, managing life a little bit better which covers a huge range of elements. Whether it's the ergonomics at your desk, talking about your emotions or asking for help. I think that's where mindset comes into play and it's not just about getting into the right mindset to go and exercise or eating the right food because there is a lot more that goes into the mindset pillar and it is something I will explore further in the episodes to come.

Recovery is an area that a lot of people don't understand from a physical and emotional point of view. Recovery is that process where your body needs to repair and where your mind can repair itself from its experiences. At the end of the day, if you have the correct recovery procedure sets in place, you can wake up easier without being tired. It's not just about sleeping, it's about recovering from stressful moments or recovering from all forms of exertion, be it training or mental challenges. So I do like to focus on recovery as a pillar that is going to make you a better person at the end of the day, a better father and partner.

The last pillar for me is one of the largest parts of Daddious. That is the idea of support, but support from many different angles. So let me go back a little bit to when we fell pregnant. I am I'm the type of guy who likes to dive into a topic as deeply as possible. I like to know as much as possible about the topic at hand. So when my wife and I fell pregnant I went on this deep dive into how do I make sure my wife and my unborn child are healthy? How do I ensure that I'm ready for this transition and the changes in my life that are about to happen? So I started reading, I started buying books, I started Googling, I started YouTubing. Trying to find as much advice as possible about the whole process of pregnancy, about fatherhood, about parenting as I could. Now a lot of content out there is generally directed towards the mother, what the mother is going through and what the mother needs and what is considered healthy for the mother etc. There's not a lot for dads, there's not a lot of what to expect if you when you're becoming a father or what to expect within that process throughout the journey.

Dads need to have a place where they can go and ask for help where they can share their experiences of fatherhood in the hopes that it's going to possibly help a new dad. Another element of support is in creating a safe place where we dads can ask for help. I have struggled with depression from a very early age and it's purely because I haven't been able to ask for help. I am quite vocal about mental health and trying to go against the stigma of real men not needing to talk about their inner wolds and that is what I am going to work actively against. A place where dads are not going to be judged for saying that they are struggling, and help and support dads through their challenges. If you're here and listening to us, you'll know that the first couple of months or, for some of us, the first couple of years can be extremely difficult and having a place to connect could make all the difference.

Now raising a child it's extremely stressful. There are sleepless nights and worrying about your child in all sorts of ways as there is now a lot on your shoulders that society has made us think is normal to not talk about and that we just need to man up and absorb. These pressures are creating, in my opinion, a bit of a pandemic in the mental health of fathers and I want to ensure that there's a place that dads can go and talk about this and talk about what they're feeling and essentially be talked off a figurative ledge or given that opportunity to shine.

And on that, you know Daddious is also a place where I want dads to celebrate their wins, big wins, small wins, no matter how small it is. I want it to be a place where they can come forward, share their wins and essentially get the pat on the back that they may need. That little positive reinforcement is great to keep the momentum going.

So, you might be asking yourself, where is all of this going to happen? Primarily, I am going to be running a private Facebook group where you can join as a father and where we can engage in discussions around health, movement, nutrition, mindset and recovery. I'm also looking at doing these podcasts! I'm going to start off with an episode once a month and eventually grow it to the point where I can also add a YouTube channel. Essentially, it's also a group where I can share my knowledge and share my experiences.

So if you look in the notes down below, you will find the link to the Facebook group. Please feel free to come through and join the group and please don't be afraid to ask questions. I am also going to be essentially using this group as a platform for me to help you guys, to help fathers out and level them up through different types of programmes, whether it's training programmes, nutritional programmes or mindset programmes, and fun stuff like challenges, etc.

The main focus of the group is to help you get out there and be the best dad that you can be and to share those experiences and share what it means to be a great father. If you are keen to learn a little bit more, go and visit the group or even consider joining it. I have looked into lining up some great interviews for this podcast down the line and just generally sharing as much knowledge as I can. I think with a group that's going to help me evolve, these podcasts and the content that I share will hopefully add value to your life to add value to the journey of being a father.

I look forward to sharing this journey with you and learning about you as a dad and how we can build up this wealth of content and knowledge around fatherhood and being a dad.

Until next time, that's a signing off from me and Matt, I will see you guys all in the group chat.