Q&A: Parenthood Changed Everything… Here’s What We Didn’t Expect (Part 2 with My Husband)

0:00How do you feel about being a dad? I don't think that my actual lifestyle will change that much.

0:04Greg:How has being parents affected your outlook on your life and careers? It's changed everything. Most of the changes have been mental and emotional. I feel more joy than I ever knew was possible. At the same time, I am more afraid than I've ever been before. He is literally my heart outside my chest. What surprised you about life with a newborn? Everything. Why doesn't he just quit smoking? I'm a highly disciplined person. I'm a huge goal go-getter. I smoke cigars. I drink tequila. I take care of my family. F*** with me. They're going to cancel you. This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast, and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn.

0:41Greg:Hi, Greg. Yo. We're back. Part two, baby. We're back for part two. Do you think that when we both wear a white tee, it looks like we're trying to match? No. I feel like if we're sharing a Zoom call, which we were yesterday, I was like, oh, we're both wearing, it looks like we're both wearing matching outfits. Yeah, that was a little interesting. I just feel like it looks cohesive. Okay. White tea is a white tea. I wear a white tea like every day. Oh, white tea or black tea. I actually wear a Uniqlo shirt. I'm not even going to say this. I will. I don't give a fuck. I wear a$7 Uniqlo shirt every day and I throw it away or donate it.

1:14I put it in a donate pile to be honest, but I discard it. Yeah.

1:18Greg:I think Justin Bieber does that. Why wouldn't I? When they get destroyed in the wash, I wear a fresh tea every day. So when I pack a suitcase, I just put like, you know, however many days I'm going, that many new t-shirts into the bag. It's not my favorite thing that you do. And then our house manager or whoever it is just puts it in a donation pile. It's not my favorite thing that you do. I mean, honestly, most people, let's say they buy a$50 shirt and they wear it 10 times. They're basically doing the same thing. Yeah. It's a little wasteful. Not if it's donated. Okay. Where did you guys get married?

1:49Cabo San Lucas.

1:50Greg:Chileno Bay. Yeah, a hotel called Chileno Bay or a resort. It was honestly beautiful because we had a very small guest list. it was a COVID wedding and we decided to do it in Cabo because right after COVID. But yeah, we put our wedding on hold. It was still a mask error though. No, no. I mean, we, we had vaccine cards and everything. It was like just about done though. Okay. Okay. So, um, but I guess maybe while planning it, we didn't know what the hell was going to be. Okay. So it was a Cabo wedding. Uh, and what was really cool about it is like, I feel like one of the fundamental issues with weddings is that they are just for a few hours at one moment.

2:29And there's all these people that you need to socialize with and have a fun memory with. And I get the negatives to having a destination wedding, but how we planned this, it was a very intimate group that we basically just, for the most part, supported everybody going on a large vacation together for three days. And that in itself feels like the wedding to me in my memory, of course, with the peak being the ceremony itself but um yeah we were we were married in cabo for like and it was like a two night or three night uh family trip with just our very closest friends it was really fun and family

3:03Greg:obviously we have very closest friends and family yeah what 25 people guest list no it's 15 people oh my god it's nothing yeah it's nothing it's funny because i would do it so differently now but it was also just yeah i'm sure yeah it was perfect yeah um i want to have another wedding though. Yeah, we'll do something in 10 years. I think that's fun. Yeah. Wait, what's this year? Married 2021. This is our five year this, this December. Yeah. But if you look it up, it's still like the wood wedding or like the five years is pretty cool. I know, but it doesn't really get cool until you're at like 40.

3:37Then it's like diamond.

3:39Greg:I think we should go back to Chileno with Kai. Yeah. We're going to Cabo for your birthday. Yeah. Just for a couple of days. Yeah. Does he smoke cigars in front of the baby? Why doesn't And he just quit smoking. No, I don't smoke cigars anywhere near the baby. Obviously, I do not smoke cigars anywhere near pregnant Mari or breastfeeding Mari. And yeah, I actually don't know if there's any negatives to smoking cigars to your health. I have not seen one actual study to tell me that there is an issue with nicotine or smoking cigars as long as you take care of your oral hygiene. My oral hygiene is top tier.

4:10I think nicotine is good for anti-dementia and anti-amnesia. Sorry, not amnesia, Alzheimer's. So I think the cognitive neural benefits are fucking awesome. And I have one vice. I have two. I don't know. I'm a highly disciplined person. I'm a, I'm a huge goal. Go getter. I smoke cigars. I drink tequila. I take care of my family. So I don't know. Fuck with me. No, I don't. If someone's going to tell me to not smoke cigars, it's like, you gotta be fucking kidding me, dude.

4:40Greg:That's like your real housewives. Yeah. And you want to know what else? If you want to be pissed off, I don't really eat vegetables. Oh my God. I haven't been sick in three years. They're going to cancel you. You know the Real Housewives intros where they're like, I have a mansion and a chihuahua. What the fuck? Like if they come on the screen and there's like an intro and they say like a little tagline, that was you. That modern media. You were like, I'm a driven person. What did you say? No, I just like get really fired up when people are like, why do you smoke? What's the issue? Have JJ clip that whole thing.

5:09Greg:No, I'm dead serious. And like do like a, like Greg Levecchio. Like that's your intro. That should be like pinned on your page. That was just rogue. I could do a better one, but. No. Yeah. That's the thing. You couldn't though. I know what you mean. That's what I'm always trying to tell you. You couldn't because that was just you. Yeah. You're insane. This is why Kai's insane. Like I'm wondering why my child's like a gorilla and it's because of you. Anyway. Sure.

5:36Greg:How has being parents affected your outlook on your life and careers? Congrats. It's changed everything. By the way, clip the podcast. you came on before I was pregnant. It's not going to change anything. I go, someone asked, how do you think a baby's going to change your life? And you said, I don't think it will. How do you feel about being a dad? I don't think that my actual lifestyle will change that much. Famous last words, dude. Famous last words. Someone literally brought it up in the Q &A. Most of the changes have been mental and emotional. I'll speak for myself. It's not like I had an incredibly active social life or tons of things that I was physically doing that I am no longer doing.

6:21I have constrained them into shorter time windows and have been more disciplined about where I put them in my day. So if I'm going to be selfish and go work out for an hour, I do it before Mari and Kai wake up. But I already worked out at 5.30 in the morning. Like I already had what I thought was a tremendous amount of responsibility, right? We have 100 employees, whatever it may be. But so – and I know how to be responsible and like deploy responsibility to things around me. But this has obviously just been on an emotional level so much greater than anything I've experienced before.

7:00Greg:Yeah. And I – and, you know, if I'm being like totally transparent, I like had an inkling of that when he was first born and like what this would mean. and like this, this, this, but I didn't really have like a full like Lion King moment, like holding him in front of the sunset until probably seven to eight weeks old. Okay. Of like, oh, this is, this is like, this is really fucking real. And this was probably because my, you know, we were still on like paternity leave mode and like things were very different. We hadn't socialized at all. Like it was just like, keep this baby clean and alive and like, and like help Mari feed him.

7:39Greg:and uh so for me it was the second he came out of course because you of course um for me i think for the woman because you quite literally are carrying them and feeling them in you and you have this like crazy bond and that's why i panicked when i was pregnant and i was like oh my god like we gotta get ready like remember i was kind of freaking out i had more like fear around him. This morning I gave him a hard hug. He's tough now. I can squeeze him goodbye. I can tell he knows that dad is giving him a hard hug. I was afraid to lift his arm for the first four weeks and put it into the sleeve of a pajamas.

8:24Is his rotator cuff going to pop out of his shoulder? I had never, first of all, rewind. I had never held a baby before Kai.

8:33Greg:You wouldn't even look at them. No, I still don't give a fuck about anyone's baby. I care about my baby. But like, I don't have any interest in holding someone else's baby. I don't, I mean maybe, you know, like I'm the godfather to Leo. Did you hold Estella? Yeah, I've held Estella. I think I haven't really, I didn't have any grasp on what it could potentially mean. I still know exactly what it means until probably, you know, seven, eight weeks in yeah i think that's normal for dads honestly i think like the fear around them is normal yeah the second he came out i was like oh i don't give a frick about anything else yeah so so going back to the actual question um my actual like

9:19Greg:the biggest change has just been emotional for me my outlook on life i think every like the small things have become so much more important and like everything feels so much deeper to me and I like really evaluate things differently like the environment like for example I did bath time and bedtime with him last night and I was like sometimes it's challenging to do alone because you went out for dinner yeah first of all Mario does it does bedtime every night uh but I wasn't home last night it you need an extra set of hands like the girls get it and I was like I don't want to be stressed and miserable as I'm doing this.

9:58Greg:And not that I ever am. It's just like, I don't want him to see that I'm like stressed. So I played Justin Bieber and had the best time with him. And we were like dancing and having fun. And I was like, this is what I want his childhood to be. That's dope. And it in turn enhances my life. You know, like seeing him happy and us having a good time together is just like, like I feel more joy than I ever knew was possible. at the same time i am more afraid of life than i've ever been before because i know one day he will fall and get hurt or i can't control everything and that is really scary like he is literally my heart outside my chest the concept of like anything bad ever happening to him is like makes me sick so that's my outlook on life do you know what i'm saying i get what you're saying The moms are probably nodding like they get it.

10:55Greg:Was training Arnold pre-Kai worth it? And what was the goal? Yeah. So for context, Arnold is Mari's dog that I have had to adopt and take the response. That's actually the biggest change in my life.

11:13So I needed a dog that was trained.

11:20Greg:Excuse me. This was my decision. So I – I sent him to training. I run him every morning because for this dog to be remotely in a civil manner requires him to go sprint three miles every single morning. He's a sweetie. And so I needed a dog that could run off leash with me. And so that has been an absolute game changer. Like having some proper training, knowing how to use negative and positive feedback loops to enhance his – You know, the thing is dog training is not going to change your dog's personality, right? So if you have a dog that is a wild, high energy dog. A working breed. A working breed.

11:59You're not going to train a dog into being a calm, you know, apartment dog.

12:04Greg:I think that's a huge misconception people have with dog training, that it will give, they will just be handed back a new dog and they have to just continue with their life as is. It's, you're taking on a responsibility. Yeah. The reason we decided to get Arnold trained is he needed it. He's a working breed dog. He's very intelligent. And he's the type of dog that wakes up every day and needs a job to do. And the goal was not to change Arnold. It was to learn how to control him in, not control him, how to like, yeah, essentially control his behaviors when we needed to. So if the baby's on the floor or.

12:40If I wanted to run him, he could be off leash. Sure.

12:43Greg:But it wasn't just for you. It was for the family. Well, I have taken the brunt of like his routines. When Arnold first got trained and he came home, I was fully responsible for his training for the three months that I was pregnant. No, you did this. It's fucking awesome. He's great because of you. So we taught him place. Place is probably the biggest thing we taught him because it tells him to go somewhere. So I even use that when I'm working out and he's in the gym and he's in the way. Oh, that's awesome. I have him place on one of our cubes and it gets him out of the way. um he's not an aggressive dog but he is very food focused so like i think it's really important to have training to get him away from food but it's also great to motivate him yeah um i'm really glad we did it no i had him around the chickens last night yeah that was crazy yeah and like if he's getting too close to kai and i say down sit like he will he will get away yeah and he's been great around Kai.

13:40Greg:I mean, my biggest thing with the babies and the dogs is like, I am not the type of person to like present my baby to the dogs. Like whenever I see people doing that, like when they come home and they like show the dogs the baby and they're like, Oh, don't you love your sister? Like, no, no, no. That's my baby, not yours. We've also chosen to not have like purebred golden retrievers or French bulldogs. True. Like we have like a, you know, some more, we, we like dogs that require land and want to go do things. And like, they're a little more aggressive. I don't think anyone should be presenting their baby.

14:11Greg:It's like not, it's not the right protocol to follow because you're essentially saying like this baby is as much yours as it is mine. Yeah. And I think having respect and like the dogs just coexisting with the baby is the goal. You don't want your dogs to be obsessed with like licking your baby. Like something could happen like that, even if you have a golden retriever. So that's my opinion. Yeah, I'm fairly sure Arnold eats like an entire dead squirrel every day. So he should not lick Kai. Great. What surprised you about life with a newborn? What surprised me? Everything. Yeah, fucking everything.

14:44I didn't know what we were getting into. I just knew that I could lead with love. And so that seemed accurate. I can lead with love.

14:54But, you know, there's a lot of, like, binary decisions that you will need to make for the child, right? Whether it's what school you send him to at some point or who you allow around him or what germs you allow around him or the lifestyle that you try to lead with him and what you prioritize around his routine and why. And a lot of them are like binary or black and white decisions that you need to make. And it is very hard to – I'm just going to go with my gut on this one like you would maybe in a lot of your normal life decisions. But around him it feels very powerful. so it's tough to treat these decisions binary when there's pros and cons of each decision.

15:34Greg:Yeah, the decision making is really actually quite challenging because you just want to do the best. And it's tough because sometimes you have to make decisions that aren't easy for the baby, like the tongue tie revision. Sure, we had an optional medical procedure that we decided to move forward with. Which was definitely the right decision. Oh, he sticks his tongue out at me now. No, it's huge. I mean, his tongue was stuck to the bottom of his mouth. He would have had to do it at some point. Which can cause issues eating solids and with speech. Yeah. And it's much better to do it when they're little, but it was really hard to see him in pain.

16:07Yeah.

16:07Greg:I mean, any time Kai is in any sort of pain or discomfort, like, I'm also crying every time. Like, I would rather be stabbed in the face than watch him in pain ever. What makes Greg most proud of Mari being a new mom? it has been uh you know the the simplest way i can explain it is more just like holding down the fort more than i i could have imagined somebody in our life doing that on this level meaning like she has just taken over our household so she has and that or just whatever environment our family is in so whether we're traveling or we're in our home in texas um you have made sure that like the environment around Kai, like whatever radius you deem necessary is, uh, is an environment that you are making sure checks the boxes of the, you know, the, the, your values of what's the perfect environment for him.

17:05And that's 24 seven. And so there's, there's no checking out. And so whether he wakes up in the middle of the night or at 5am or, you know, it's in the middle of dinner, like there's a lot of nights where we just eat dinner standing up. And these are things that like we would have never allowed to disrupt our previous values six months ago before he was born. But basically we've just like entered this whole chapter with a blank slate and you've done it. You've done it with with with with no question. And. It's been really impressive to watch. Thank you.

17:43Greg:Appreciate that. what kept you both going in bad business times um

17:54Greg:i don't think we ever viewed them as bad business times i would say i would say i would say a lot of the time first of all bad bad times are inevitable and good times go come and go and you're they're all relative to the things that have happened to you previously or what your goals may be, but I think that they are inevitable and they too shall pass. But you, what kept us going, was that the question? Yeah. You have to go through them. So you have no choice, but to keep going through them. If you do not go through them, you will, you will not, they will beat you. Right. So when there is a bad time in your life or in your business, the only choice is through.

18:36It is not sitting down. So I would say, you know, whatever that means for the, for the challenge that you're going through, action is the only answer.