EP74: How To Get Clarity As a Dad

Interview with Brooks Barron / The Inheritance of Good Fatherhood Examples

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Brooks Barron was destined for a high-achieving corporate life. He graduated from Princeton University as his father had and went on to Stanford's business school. Enormous wealth and professional accolades were his for the taking. But there was something about his Colorado childhood, its inspiring lessons, that called to him. He took a different path, working outdoors in teaching and leadership roles built around the natural world. A young father, Brooks has thoughts on how to help visionary leaders discover their soul's purpose and unleash their full aliveness.

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Transcript

00;00;05;19 - 00;00;27;04
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, strange and sublime aspects of being a lead dad in a world where men who are the go to parents aren't always accepted at work, among their friends or in the community for what they're doing. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan. Our podcast is just one of the many things we've produced each week at the Company of Dads.

00;00;27;05 - 00;00;47;21
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including the lead of the week. We have our community both online and some in-person events as well. We have a new resource library for all fathers. The one stop shop for all of this is our newsletter, The Dad. So sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash the dad that's the company of dads.com backslash the dad.

00;00;47;24 - 00;01;08;28
Paul Sullivan
Today my guest is Brooks Barron, a lead dad at the earliest stages with a six month old daughter. Native of Colorado. Brooks took a traditional route coming out of Princeton. He went to work for a large management consulting company. He then went to Stanford Business School, a golden ticket back into the corporate world for many. But he took a different path.

00;01;09;03 - 00;01;31;11
Paul Sullivan
Working outdoors and teaching and leadership roles built around the natural world. In 2018, he founded Starlight Leadership, which aims to help visionary leaders discover their souls, purpose and unleash their full aliveness. He lives in Colorado with his wife Ashley and their baby daughter. Welcome Brooks to the Company of Dads podcast.

00;01;31;14 - 00;01;33;19
Brooks Barron
Thanks so much, Paul. Happy to be here.

00;01;33;21 - 00;01;47;10
Paul Sullivan
Let's start off. You know, you and I have talked before. We talked offline. Talk about the role that adventure in the outdoors played in your own childhood.

00;01;47;12 - 00;02;10;27
Brooks Barron
Yeah. You know, I count myself quite lucky to have had access to the great outdoors from a very young age, growing up here in Colorado and with a family who was into that kind of thing. And it was one of the ways I remember connecting, with my own dad and of course my siblings and my mom as well.

00;02;10;27 - 00;02;34;09
Brooks Barron
But, I recall, you know, being here in these mountains and they're near where I live now in the Roaring Fork Valley, and feeling this kind of boundless sense of freedom and expansiveness in these mountains, like, wow, how I could I go, how far? What's the world going to look like from up there? Can we go up there, dad?

00;02;34;11 - 00;02;39;04
Brooks Barron
Yeah. And, yeah. Brings a lot of joy to to think back on it.

00;02;39;07 - 00;02;44;10
Paul Sullivan
What are some of your earliest memories of of being in the mountains or being in the outdoors?

00;02;44;12 - 00;03;12;28
Brooks Barron
Well, certainly memories from summers growing up where I or my family would, would come up from our home in Boulder to spend time at our off the grid mountain cabin, near Aspen. And, I remember going on, you know, I would my first family camp out. We went to, the lake called Crater Lake at the base of the Maroon Bells, which back then, you know, wasn't super crowded.

00;03;12;28 - 00;03;55;24
Brooks Barron
Today is a major tourist destination. But I remember carrying this backpack that must have been, I don't know, maybe 10 pounds of weight or something. Yeah, but just felt like the heaviest thing in the world. And my dad lugging his massive pack with families worth of gear. I remember running around the woods surrounding our cabin with my younger brother, Ben, playing make believe, making up stories, having adventures, you know, setting out, to slay the dragons of our imagination and, just totally losing ourselves in the play.

00;03;55;26 - 00;04;23;21
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. You know, one of the bits of advice we give to to to fathers to lead dads who reach out to us at the company dads is we remind them that, you know, kids watch what we do far more than they listen to what we say. So when you think back of those, you know, examples from your, your child, the things that you saw, the things that your parents showed you, that your siblings showed you, that you now incorporate into you being a new father.

00;04;23;21 - 00;04;27;05
Paul Sullivan
What are a few of those things that that stand out for you?

00;04;27;07 - 00;05;06;01
Brooks Barron
Such a good question. Well yeah. One is certainly that excitement for adventure and and play especially playing outside in nature and appreciating the natural world. You know, my dad is someone who just loves being outside and loves being in wild places. And I think I caught yeah, I picked that up from him at a young age of just like the ability to just slow down and really open my eyes and kind of drop back into this big sense of awe and wonder and like, wow, the world is such an amazing place.

00;05;06;03 - 00;05;50;14
Brooks Barron
Yeah. That's something I'm already really enjoying offering to the camera, who's a wonderfully observant little six month old. So it's super fun to get out on a walk with her in the mornings. And, you know, watch the seasons change and just see what draws her attention. Yeah. And that's it. The second piece is also, both of my parents in their own way, made some bold choices in their life to really follow their passions and prioritize what was important to them, including in some, you know, some decisions that weren't necessarily easy or, you know, mainstream, so to speak.

00;05;50;16 - 00;06;08;05
Brooks Barron
And that's, I think, been a huge influence on, on me in my own path. You know, as you mentioned in my intro, kind of, yeah. Being willing to kind of, Blaze my own trail to some extent.

00;06;08;07 - 00;06;29;09
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. But we're going to get to that down below. But I actually one more question about the childhood. Do you think about grit and your dad, as a noted conservationist? He's a he's a successful author. At the dinner table, your kids always want what they don't have at the dinner table. Were there ever conversation like, hey, mom, dad, can we go to Las Vegas or like, Los Angeles?

00;06;29;09 - 00;06;33;26
Paul Sullivan
You could have this bourbon place, out there. Did that ever come up?

00;06;33;28 - 00;06;52;23
Brooks Barron
You know. Yeah. So I definitely had my version of that, I would say is probably like my middle school years. I started to, I started to really, resent going to the mountain cabinet. Believe it or not, it's like my favorite place in the world now. You know, it's my soul's home. It's where my wife and I got married.

00;06;52;29 - 00;07;17;14
Brooks Barron
But I totally had a phase where, you know, I was I needed I was individuated, maybe, you know, going against the grain. And I was like, this place is boring. You know, there's no, there's no computers or TV around. There's, like, all my friends are far away or at summer camps and stuff. And, my parents like to kind of playfully remind me of that, because it feels pretty.

00;07;17;17 - 00;07;26;01
Paul Sullivan
I can imagine this guy, like, do you, mom and dad? I don't want to do that. I'm going to go live in Atlanta and sit in traffic for hours.

00;07;26;03 - 00;07;34;19
Brooks Barron
And I'll show you. This place is so boring. What do we do? We spend so much time here. There's like, Oh my God.

00;07;34;26 - 00;07;41;13
Paul Sullivan
So you go east for school. You go to Princeton, and then, you know, like many East Coast schools, it's not, at.

00;07;41;13 - 00;07;43;10
Brooks Barron
All,

00;07;43;12 - 00;08;01;06
Paul Sullivan
Strange or even unique to go the route of, you know, management consulting coming out of go into banking. These seem to be great, you know, training grounds for for people, whatever you want to go on and do later on. But, knowing people were to Deloitte and a lot of other management consulting firms, it's the least natural world you could imagine.

00;08;01;06 - 00;08;18;04
Paul Sullivan
It's your thing, you know? Yeah. Passable. What did you, you know, when you when you took that route right out of right out of Princeton, what did you hope to achieve and what did you actually learn from those years? You know, working in management consulting?

00;08;18;06 - 00;08;53;24
Brooks Barron
Well, I had always been a good student. I'd always really thrived in school, you know, from a pretty young age and, and through college and that kind of high achieving mentality had had served me well to that point, you know. So I think in part it was like a continuation of that reflex to just reach for the, the thing that was well-regarded or prestigious or seen as, you know, successful.

00;08;53;26 - 00;09;17;24
Brooks Barron
And, to be a little more, you know, maybe candid and vulnerable about it. You know, another truth was that at that time, leaving my at my senior year college, I was having a somewhat of a mental health crisis. I had some tough things that had gone on in my life, and that left me spinning out a little bit.

00;09;17;24 - 00;09;50;03
Brooks Barron
And I, in retrospect, can see, you know, I was just reaching for some kind of stability. And so, like a high, a well-regarded job like that felt safe. And there's another element to it, which was I really had this strong desire again, somewhat somewhat, I'd say very much inherited from, like, the values that my parents passed down to me from a young age, but a strong desire to make a positive impact on the world.

00;09;50;06 - 00;09;59;04
Brooks Barron
Okay. And, like a lot of millennials. Right. And and I think, I.

00;09;59;04 - 00;10;06;13
Paul Sullivan
Mean, it's probably better than saying I'd like to go out, graduate from prison and become a rapacious swindler. I mean, I think that, you know, you know, that.

00;10;06;16 - 00;10;32;11
Brooks Barron
Yeah. Well, who knows? You know, there may have been some they may not have owned it, but, to each their own. Yeah. I wanted to make a big impact, and I, I believe that getting exposure to that part of the world to the sort of the high achieving, high flying business circles of the world would be, perhaps my most my best bet at doing that.

00;10;32;11 - 00;11;02;03
Brooks Barron
I could study public policy and then gone to DC for a summer internship between my junior and senior year, and, and left feeling kind of jaded about, the government route as a way to make real change in our time. Yeah. So I wanted to I wanted to make a big change. And so I wanted to, to go learn some really useful skills and work with some really smart people and, learn about what does it take to actually influence things and make change.

00;11;02;03 - 00;11;29;05
Brooks Barron
And, and I would say that that was the answer. The second part of your question, like I did get that I learned some really useful skills. I worked with some incredibly smart people. And as a strategy consultant, you know, operating in the senior levels of major big organizations, I did learn a lot about what change looks like and how, frankly, how challenging it is and how many obstacles there are to it.

00;11;29;07 - 00;12;10;10
Brooks Barron
I also I also learned that, that that kind of bigger corporate environment really wasn't for me that as much as I did learn and have a lot of positive experience in that job, I also was, on a deeper level, still unhappy, you know, still holding some of those deeper inner wounds from, from my senior year of college and, and yearning for more time outside, a greater connection to nature and, a more entrepreneurial environment,

00;12;10;12 - 00;12;36;01
Paul Sullivan
In each business school in America, top business school in America that they're not just, you know, ranked one through 5 or 1 through ten, they each have their own identity and the fact certain types of people are trying to do certain things. And Stanford, of course, you know, part of its identity is, is, is the tech world. But but you go to Stanford Graduate School of Business, you also get, a second degree while you're there, which I love for you to, to talk about.

00;12;36;01 - 00;12;56;22
Paul Sullivan
But, you know, up to that point, it's okay. Princeton, Deloitte, Stanford. We see where this kid's going. But what happened when you're at Stanford, what happens when you start thinking about, you know, your childhood, your background, the natural world versus, you know, they're all super smart people. You can always learn a lot from super smart, engaged people.

00;12;56;25 - 00;12;59;15
Paul Sullivan
What what changes when you're right. Yeah.

00;12;59;17 - 00;13;25;25
Brooks Barron
Yeah, yeah. Good question. And I'll actually start by I'll let you know. Actually the change I think began even a little bit before I arrived, like the change that started to happen was the memory that comes up is sitting at my desk in my room at my apartment in Washington, DC, where I was working for Deloitte, before even applying to Stanford.

00;13;25;27 - 00;13;59;24
Brooks Barron
I was maybe, I don't know, a year and a half into my time there or something. And, I was, I read, some words by Edward Abbey, you know, Ed Abbey, these, kind of old school conservationists and, wild man. He's wrote some awesome books that got one well known is called Desert Solitaire. Anyhow, he's, he's he's a, a fixture in kind of the conservation and outdoor movements, I would say worlds.

00;13;59;24 - 00;14;32;29
Brooks Barron
And he has this I read this quote that was like the closing part of a speech that he gave to a group of conservationists, some time in mid 20th century or even earlier. That was essentially the message of the speech was it's important to fight for the land, but it's even more important to enjoy it. He's telling these these conservation people, he's saying, you know, be a half hearted warrior.

00;14;33;01 - 00;14;54;06
Brooks Barron
You know, don't don't forget to just like, like, get out there and live and, like, enjoy these, these, these beautiful, wild places, you know, breathe deep. The sweet and lucid air is one of the lines. And it just hit. I felt broke out in the tears at my at my desk alone in the library, you know, looking outside at the tree outside my window.

00;14;54;06 - 00;15;16;02
Brooks Barron
There was some nature there. And I was like, oh my God. Yeah. Like I'm fighting so hard. And I was, you know, my motivation, my conscious motivation, at least at the time, was like, I really want to help address climate change. That had been a big part of my studies at school. I was like, and that was why I was trying to kind of work my way into the energy field through the way I was like, but I'm wearing myself down.

00;15;16;03 - 00;15;27;01
Brooks Barron
I'm not enjoying the magic that I'm trying to fight so hard to save. So that was when I need it. That's when I knew I needed to make a change, and I don't. You think about the Stanford.

00;15;27;02 - 00;15;29;06
Paul Sullivan
This this changes so soon after.

00;15;29;10 - 00;15;29;17
Brooks Barron
Yeah.

00;15;29;17 - 00;15;49;01
Paul Sullivan
I mean, so many people go to DC. I would I would hope more than the, you know, the majority go to DC because they want to effect positive change. So they don't go. Some of them really go with the cynical motivation. There are cynics among us ever. But they want to, you know, do something positive. They want to find a way, you know, to change whatever it is they care about.

00;15;49;02 - 00;16;06;16
Paul Sullivan
You know? And then I may not always agree with what they care about, but they care passionate about it. But it's a great point because I think of, you know, my town in Connecticut, there is a fight over our, our library and the library, very old library wasn't really functioning, anymore, and it wasn't really architecturally significant.

00;16;06;16 - 00;16;32;07
Paul Sullivan
But there was a fight back and forth, over, over change. And it really was a bit of a pitched battle. Now they built a beautiful sort of environmentally very friendly, new library. And I hope that those people who fought so hard to save this, this sliver of the facade that they wanted to maintain can see the joy that the kids in the elderly people get from this library to having a beautiful library.

00;16;32;07 - 00;16;54;27
Paul Sullivan
You can go and read, you can go and be outside. So that is in your brain of like, you know, enjoy the journey. Don't just fight, fight, fight, but enjoy the things. Yeah. You want to enjoy. Yeah. Then you you show up, in, in in Palo Alto, you know, be able to sort of get, I would assume, even more skills to sort of put into practice what you want to do.

00;16;54;28 - 00;16;57;18
Paul Sullivan
So. So talk about what what happens then.

00;16;57;21 - 00;17;08;00
Brooks Barron
Yeah. So that's exactly right. I landed in Palo Alto. You know, it's sunny, beautiful, amazing nature around, you know, making great new friends.

00;17;08;00 - 00;17;11;17
Paul Sullivan
Not 100% humidity, like like DC in the summer.

00;17;11;20 - 00;17;46;26
Brooks Barron
Oh, yeah. And then, incredible trails. And, you know, the Santa Cruz Mountains right up above campus is right. And ride bikes and running through the redwoods and making great new friends is learning amazing things about you, about, business and leadership and also about, clean energy and the environment. That was my my joint degree was, master's of Science in Environment and Resources, an interdisciplinary program that, added on to the professional degree of the MBA.

00;17;46;26 - 00;18;17;26
Brooks Barron
And I chose to focus it on, on clean energy because that's where I wanted to I wanted to get into climate tech. And so, I was having fun. I was like, getting everything I thought I wanted, and I and I had the sense to have, like, now I've really made it, you know, my my father, also got an MBA, from the Stanford of the East, so to speak, at Harvard.

00;18;17;29 - 00;18;41;20
Brooks Barron
And growing up, I, I just always noted how much that, experience and the, connections, the friends, the network he built there at that time seemed to really create a lot of meaning in his life. And, so I kind of had this feeling of like, I've made it to that point now. Now my life will feel more fulfilling and more full of meaning and purpose.

00;18;41;20 - 00;19;02;05
Brooks Barron
Is that was like the thing I was really craving. And about a year after kind of my first year, I ended up at a summer internship at a solar energy company. Near that in living near the mountains. And I once again, kind of on paper, it was what I thought I wanted and what I thought would make me happy.

00;19;02;05 - 00;19;32;17
Brooks Barron
And yet I still found myself, actually pretty unhappy in that job. And, and, and even with all of the great parts of my Stanford experience that I was loving there felt like there was a deeper layer of belonging that was very present for me, that was kind of gnawing at me that I still hadn't really touched.

00;19;32;20 - 00;19;43;16
Brooks Barron
And, that was challenging for me. I, I started to doubt myself, you know, my, my own ability to find out yourself.

00;19;43;16 - 00;19;46;23
Paul Sullivan
And in what sense? What do you mean by doubt yourself?

00;19;46;26 - 00;20;09;05
Brooks Barron
Now, my, like like it was like, wow, I've worked so hard to get into this fancy school and I've, like, have, like, jumped through these hoops that I thought would, would get me, help me feel the way I want to feel inside, which is kind of like what Edward Abbey was pointing to in that, in that speech, like feeling fully alive.

00;20;09;07 - 00;20;41;20
Brooks Barron
And I was finding, like, here I am, I have achieved all the things I thought were going to make me feel fully alive and it's not quite doing it for me. So I started to, to question, you know, can I actually do that? Am I capable of feeling that way and kind of, charting a path that's really so rich of meaning and purpose that I've always dreamed that I could become the the version of myself that I believe I can become.

00;20;41;22 - 00;20;42;16
Brooks Barron
Does that make sense?

00;20;42;18 - 00;21;06;25
Paul Sullivan
It does. I think one of the things that would really help the listeners is I, you know, hear what you're saying is a. It's sometimes in life we, we get pushed and sometimes we, we jump. And if you get pushed out of something, you suddenly have to come up with a plan and figure out, okay, what's next? Or maybe now I can actually do what it is that I wanted to do.

00;21;06;25 - 00;21;32;21
Paul Sullivan
But you made the decision to to jump and you went to work for a whole series of different companies. Noel's been probably the best known that, you know, teach leadership, teach life skills through, through the outdoors. But that was, you know, the literally leap you had that you had to, you know, you could have kept on doing what you were doing, you know, coming back to Deloitte in a second, would it be easy or any other, what was that moment?

00;21;32;21 - 00;21;48;23
Paul Sullivan
Because it's really important for men, for fathers listening to what was that moment where you said, you know what, I'm going to do this. I'm not going to wait to be pushed. I may never be pushed them. I could be very successful here. I'm going to jump, and I'm going to take a chance that when I jump, I'm going to land, in a better place.

00;21;48;23 - 00;21;57;15
Paul Sullivan
And if I don't, maybe I'll jump again. But I'm going to do that jump. And I think that's such a difficult thing for a lot of people to, to do. To. Yeah. To fully be alive.

00;21;57;18 - 00;22;36;29
Brooks Barron
Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Paul. Yeah. So, so that moment there was like a seed planted that made that moment possible. And the seed was actually planted during my time at Stanford Business School at the end of that same summer, where I had that internship that felt sort of, disappointing to me. I, signed up for a Vision Quest program, which involved going out into the wilderness for 11 days and spending three days and three nights alone with no food, fasting alone in the wilderness, and, it was a very transformative experience.

00;22;36;29 - 00;22;37;10
Brooks Barron
So you get.

00;22;37;10 - 00;22;44;19
Paul Sullivan
To go to, like, like Ruth's Chris Steakhouse beforehand and really, like, have you a love for this or do you go.

00;22;44;21 - 00;23;12;02
Brooks Barron
No, actually, I spent the couple weeks beforehand kind of trying to eat clean so that I wouldn't, you know, crash too hard. I was fasting, God preparing my body for it. But, man, I sure did appreciate some good food at the end of that trip, I tell you. And, and and it was coming out of that experience that I was able to fully touch that sense of being fully alive, like there was there was some deep healing that I did on that time on the land.

00;23;12;09 - 00;23;32;16
Brooks Barron
There was some amazing inspiration and insight that I received, a, really powerful connection to deeper connection to nature than I'd ever even known was possible. And more than nature. Just kind of like something greater than myself. It was a very spiritual experience. So then I kind of came back to Stanford and then, yeah, like jumped to a couple different jobs.

00;23;32;16 - 00;23;58;06
Brooks Barron
And fast forward a few years later, to the moment of jumping that I would say was, was the choice to jump was I had had that I had a taste of what it could feel like for me to be in my full aliveness. And then I tried enough different things. That's kind of my, my, my, the more rational kind of path was taking me and it just wasn't quite getting me there.

00;23;58;08 - 00;24;22;19
Brooks Barron
And so the moment was basically realizing, like, I don't know if there's going to be a better time in my life than now to take some risk. I had met my now wife. Actually, we were dating. Seriously. I could sense that it was maybe, you know, going ahead towards marriage and, but we weren't there yet, and we didn't have any kids yet, and I thought, I'm gonna.

00;24;22;21 - 00;24;50;20
Brooks Barron
I'm gonna really just. Yeah, leap into the unknown and, chase after this feeling of, being fully alive, like, more than the younger kind of version of me was looking for the, the check, the achievement box, that kind of, you know, maybe, society had maybe sort of told me was the thing to do or that I had in that time in my life, thought was the thing to do.

00;24;50;23 - 00;25;03;13
Brooks Barron
Not so much the external outcome or the, external perception of what I'm doing, but my internal experience of it, I'm going to indicate I'm going to index on that in my choice.

00;25;03;16 - 00;25;17;09
Paul Sullivan
And then obviously, for you, you had met somebody, who's going to support you in what. Yeah. You wanted to do that was kid. And, I'm not going to ask you because, you know, in case your parents are listening, they shouldn't say, wait, wait. It's how you met this guy. I went to Princeton and Stanford business school.

00;25;17;09 - 00;25;22;13
Paul Sullivan
What the hell is he doing out there? Is there a bank that will hire him? What is this going on here?

00;25;22;16 - 00;25;23;23
Brooks Barron


00;25;23;25 - 00;25;47;16
Paul Sullivan
But you do something to me that's really special. And so many people, we have hobbies, and you do something else that you enjoy more or less. But. But your hobby is your your passion. Whatever. Whatever it is, you fishing, you play golf, you play tennis. Irrelevant. But you took this passion that you had for the outer world. You took this, this your own personal experience that you'd had from your vision quest.

00;25;47;17 - 00;26;10;01
Paul Sullivan
And then, of course, let's be honest, you took, a tremendous amount of structural knowledge from your, your, your educational background, and you do something here, and it wasn't just. Okay, Brooks is going to do this on the weekends and, take the three, one week trips a year. You you had this passion to sort of like, I'm going to help other man.

00;26;10;01 - 00;26;37;06
Paul Sullivan
I'm going to help other fathers. I'm going to help other leaders. And before you even became a father, get to their full potential or as you call it, their full aliveness. And what is that moment where that, you know, personal passion that that you had, flipped and translated into? I would like to help others so that they can, you know, live better and be fuller, better versions of of themselves.

00;26;37;08 - 00;27;02;16
Brooks Barron
Well, in the in this case, I would say it, it it maybe wasn't a moment so much as a, as a process like there was a, there was the moment of choosing to jump and fully commit to finding my own path to my own full aliveness and following. And then there was, I'd say, a period of of exploration and experimentation around what that could look like.

00;27;02;18 - 00;27;30;17
Brooks Barron
A big part of that was choosing to trust that, you know, me being the the fully alive version of myself is the that's the version of myself who's going to actually make the most positive impact on the world. And so being willing to trust that kind of doing what made me come alive was not just selfish. It was also a path towards service.

00;27;30;17 - 00;27;49;23
Brooks Barron
So I had this. I chose to trust on that deeper level before knowing exactly the specifics of how it was going to come to pass or come together, and then and then it came together through, working for NOLs. You know, I'd always loved the outdoors. I had an amazing experience as a as a no student when I was 17 years old.

00;27;49;25 - 00;28;23;07
Brooks Barron
That was this. That was a setting where I felt myself kind of embodying the best version of myself. And I also noticed, wow, I'm also having this really awesome impact on my students out here on these courses. And then in between those courses, living in San Francisco, following some of the seeds that had been planted in my time at Stanford Business School, you know, in the leadership experiential education curriculum, where I've been introduced to leadership coaching for the first time and also found a lot of joy and excitement and aliveness in that work.

00;28;23;10 - 00;28;50;26
Brooks Barron
I started to blend these pieces together and just follow these threads and continue to give myself more permission like that. It was it's okay for me to just follow what's exciting and what's leading me up, and then seeing the results more and more over time of understanding how when I am embodying that highest version of myself, I seem to just naturally find a way to support other people in really meaningful ways.

00;28;50;26 - 00;29;35;02
Brooks Barron
And so I started working with entrepreneurs and founders in the Bay area and elsewhere, to help them grow and develop as leaders as they build their businesses. I continue leading courses for NOLs. And then, you know, it's sort of the pieces wove together into one. When I found it, Starlight Leadership. And we moved back here to Colorado, where I started, you know, leading wilderness trips of my own, blending my coaching skill set with more of a, kind of wilderness guide skill set, and then also, bringing in some of those mystical and ceremonial elements like a vision quest, to help others kind of find their own way to, on.

00;29;35;02 - 00;29;51;14
Paul Sullivan
This path and a break it down for the person listening to this, what would somebody, you know, get if they came to, you know, Starlight leadership. But what would be the reason that would bring them and what would be what they would hopefully achieve going through to what you're doing with them?

00;29;51;16 - 00;30;25;02
Brooks Barron
Yeah, absolutely. So. People who come to me and come to Starlight leadership tend to be in, whether whether they maybe fully recognize it yet or not, they're in a period of transition in their lives. And it's it's not just transition in the external sense, but transition in the internal sense as well. Like, there they are, maybe bumping up against the end of a specific life stage, and starting to feel the call of the next one.

00;30;25;04 - 00;30;50;27
Brooks Barron
They're not quite sure how to cross that chasm. So often I work with, leaders who have been successful, entrepreneurs who have maybe had an exit, or corporate leaders who have, you know, climbed the ladder and have maybe are having a similar experience to the one I had when I was at Stanford Business School of.

00;30;51;00 - 00;31;34;03
Brooks Barron
I thought what? I really wanted something deeper. How do I find that something deeper? Or sometimes I work with folks who are, you know, recovering from from burnout, and realizing they need to remake themselves. But there's a there's there's, there's also for, you know, a real hunger for purpose and, and aliveness. So what I do with these folks is, I support them in first kind of peeling back the layers of, of what I would call the older version of themselves or the younger version of themselves that is, that made up that that life stage that's now nearing its end.

00;31;34;06 - 00;32;00;11
Brooks Barron
There was like, you know, there's always certain behaviors or patterns or identities that were really supportive and adaptive for a certain period of their life, got them to where they are. Yeah, but have kind of now run their useful life to an end. And, and they're actually often starting to feel costly. And, so we, we work on kind of unraveling those old habits.

00;32;00;13 - 00;32;46;22
Brooks Barron
And that takes us quite deep into, the client's inner world and, kind of foundational stories or beliefs, views that they have about themselves and who they are and the way the world works and, we loosen some of those more rigid perspectives, and that opens the space for then, a little more of the magic to come in through a, you know, through a rite of passage experience, like a vision quest or a mystical, experience, that maybe they through that, through that portal, they kind of touch a deeper part of themselves.

00;32;46;24 - 00;32;47;27
Brooks Barron
Brooke's parent.

00;32;47;29 - 00;33;20;14
Paul Sullivan
It's been remarkable talking to you today. I always give my guests the the last word. So here, here's the final question. You've had experience as as a son, obviously, as a student, as an uncle of, you know, the children. And now you're, a father. Those different identities. How does it change the way you think about you as yourself, but also what you are doing for others through through starlight leadership.

00;33;20;16 - 00;34;06;25
Brooks Barron
Beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful question. Paul, to end on here. You know, the journey for me of becoming a dad has been, of course, incredibly magical and beautiful and expansive, like open my heart like nothing else before. It's also been incredibly challenging. And, you know, I've had some really low moments. And I think part of that is, going through a life transition of my own, you know, letting go of needing to fully release, accept that, like, my old life has gone, and I need to let go of that so that I can and grieve it fully so that I can be fully present in my role of, in my life what my life

00;34;06;25 - 00;34;40;08
Brooks Barron
is now. And my sense is at least my personal experience is that, that's a, that's a common experience for, for new parents. And it's not one that's, it's, it's one that parents will talk about and joke about with each other. But it's not one that's talked about maybe publicly that much. And I think it's important to acknowledge that, there it's it's not easy to bring a new human into the world.

00;34;40;11 - 00;35;23;10
Brooks Barron
And, you know, we both know it's, you know, moms are our heroes on a whole nother level in terms of what they give to make that possible. But for dads, too. So so I'm coming back into my work now with a new perspective on actually how I might be able to serve other other parents and, and maybe in particular other other dads who, might be feeling like, maybe having some of those inner struggles, but feeling like they need to kind of just stay strong and keep quiet and, and, you know, pay the bills and get things done and hold the shift together as, as, you know, we often as men can

00;35;23;10 - 00;35;52;29
Brooks Barron
do so well. But to encourage also these, these dads to not do that at the sacrifice of themselves and to really listen to and tend to that, that inner process that's maybe wanting to happen for them to open themselves up to the way that becoming a dad wants to transform them into actually an even higher and better and more powerful version of themselves.

00;35;53;01 - 00;36;10;16
Brooks Barron
To have the courage to, to be open to, to that process and, yeah, having having gone through it myself and still being in it myself, that's a way that I really look forward to, to helping others as well.

00;36;10;18 - 00;36;15;12
Paul Sullivan
Brooks Baron, thank you again for being my guest today on the company, this podcast.

00;36;15;15 - 00;36;18;08
Brooks Barron
My pleasure. Paul, thanks so much.

00;36;18;10 - 00;36;43;20
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the company of that podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do. The company of dads possible. Helder Mira, who is our audio producer Lindsay Decker, handles all of our social media. Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition. Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me.

00;36;43;20 - 00;37;01;12
Paul Sullivan
And many of the things that we do here at the Company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad. Sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.