#155 – Sheldon Smith: Fatherhood, Woodlawn & The Dovetail Project
Enter the Lionheart
Lawrence Dunning
5 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2024
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chicago-based nonprofit leader, social entrepreneur, and trailblazer in the field of fatherhood, Sheldon Smith is the Founder of “The Dovetail Project”, one of the country’s premier fatherhood initiatives.
In the past six years alone, he has raised nearly $5 million for the organization’s programming serving young fathers ages 17-24 in the City of Chicago and you have committed his life to rewriting the narrative of Black fatherhood.
0.00: The lottery of your parents
4.00: Importance of positive male role models
7.00: Early fatherhood for Sheldon & leaving a legacy
11.00: Life as a young man in Woodlawn
17.00: Early mentor in Dr. Joseph Strickland
24.00: Gaining energy from his family
33.30: Grit to overcome our Past
38.00: Taking Accountability for his Mistakes
42.00: Narrative for Young Fathers
50.00: Felony street law component of Dovetail Project
56.00: Fatherhood advice for Sheldon
Learn more about The Dovetail Project:
https://thedovetailproject.org/
Until next time, love and good vibes.
Podcast Website: https://enterthelionheart.com/
Check out the latest episode here:
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/enter-the-lionheart/id1554904704
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4tD7VvMUvnOgChoNYShbcI
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The A single theme is too narrow for great minds and daring hearts. |
| 0:18.0 | Get ready to enter the Lion Heart with your host Lauren Stunning. |
| 0:22.0 | It's a real honor to be with you Sheldon. |
| 0:25.0 | You know, I'm going to give you a bit of a background for people listening. |
| 0:28.0 | You know, you're a non-for-profit leader, an entrepreneur and a trailblazer, |
| 0:32.0 | you founded the Dovetail Project which is one of the country's |
| 0:35.6 | premier fatherhood initiatives and I think that's going to be so important I'm going to talk all about that. |
| 0:39.6 | You know in the past six years you've raised over five million dollars serving young fathers from 17 to 24 and you've really committed your life to rewriting the narrative of a black fatherhood. |
| 0:50.6 | And a couple of things, I mean a couple of, you've got so many awards awards I'm going to read a few you know you're a fourth 30 under 30 |
| 0:56.5 | entrepreneur you've received the American Red Cross community impact hero award and of course the Mohammed Ali Humanitarian Award which is has a special place in my heart |
| 1:07.3 | So I'm a huge fan of Mohammed Ali so it's such a pleasure of you taking the time and I'm really excited for our conversation |
| 1:13.0 | No, I'm excited Lawrence. I want to thank you again for having us on and giving us an opportunity |
| 1:18.1 | to talk about some near-end to your work to many of our hearts out there, which is fatherhood. |
| 1:23.5 | So excited about it. |
| 1:25.6 | Exactly. |
| 1:26.6 | Well, Sharon, can we start with that? |
| 1:27.3 | Because one thing that I realized coming to the US from England is, |
| 1:31.5 | I grew up with a two-parent household. I was very close to my |
| 1:35.0 | father. He was my best friend and my hero and I thought that was normal. And then you come |
| 1:40.1 | here and you find out that actually that's not so normal, especially today, with so many parents from broken homes and absentee fathers. |
| 1:47.0 | And so I'd love to talk a little bit about just the kind of the void and the struggles for people growing out without their father in the picture. |
| 1:56.0 | I love it. And so I would tell you that, you know, when we think about father and we think about our dads and just that love from a parent. So it's a rule in life, right? One thing we can't do is choose who our parents are, right? |
... |
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