Redefining Fatherhood in the Digital Age

The experiences in my childhood, those things I think, really helped me to have a bit of perspective and a bit of experience to relate to other people who are going through similar things and tell them, you can come out on the other side. Okay.

Welcome it to the ReLaunch podcast. And again, another pinch me moment is happening right now, I've just had the pleasure of having even additional conversations, I swear, sometimes the behind the scenes are the ones that we should be putting out there. Because I gotta tell you, this person that I'm about to interview has a heart of gold. He is one of the shining star, we're talking rocket ship. And for those out there, when I say his name, and you don't know who he is, well, you are not one of the 5.7 million followers on Tiktok that are currently calling him a proud dad. I'm talking about Summer Clayton. And crazy enough everyone this guy is you said you're 28. But here's the thing, he does not have kids in real life. But he is the most incredible dad to all of these millions of followers. So you're gonna get a chance to hear what he's doing. But every week, he sits down to dinner and a virtual chat with his kids, these these internet kids that he has, he looks into the camera, he looks with empathy and tells them hey, I'm really proud of you. He teaches them how to shave, and how to do laundry, and it's okay to actually feel pain. When life beat you down. He's there bringing them up. And here's another thing he does. He sometimes prays with them, too, right? This is what it's all about something higher than ourselves something bigger than us and bringing that around. So he may even ask, all right, how was your day, as he said in one video that I just watched, and he might decide to talk about what he's eating and show them about, like, you know, hey, we're sitting down for dinner, we're gonna go into that. But he originally was a fitness trainer, I just heard that he also is a teacher. And he was part of a fitness trainer at the Columbus Air Force Base. In Mississippi. He's not a therapist, he is not a life coach. He is literally a proud dad, to again 5.7 million people. And summer, I have been so excited father's days here. And you know what you should have this like, I feel like there should be a crown on you. And I'm crowning you this, you know, you are the most incredible father. And again, it proves once and tight, you know, time and time again, that you don't have to have the biological kids to be there to support people. And so thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you, Hillary, I really appreciate that. Awesome, very awesome intro. I think I ran out of blood because I was blushing so much. So I really appreciate you just being so kind. I gotta give all my glory and praise to God because without him, I would not have the platform that I do. And so he's entrusted me with this platform. He knows that I love to help others. And I get to do that. To the people that I may never meet. Very likely the majority of people I will never ever meet. But like I get to do this, like I get to encourage people across the screen and share my life experience. Albeit limited. I'm only 28 but it feels really good. Well,

you know, it's so dark but what I love the most about you are so humble. You are one of those that even as your your users and your followers are going up and up you have this incredibly humble kind of perspective on life and I can absolutely understand why people are following you and I I sit here over while as we're talking and I have a house load of kids and I have 26 year old twins. And you are a twin and guess what I have boy girl twins as well. So super excited to talk to you about that. But it was interesting when I was getting ready this morning. I said to my twins who are here, I said, Hey, do you happen to know this guy? You know, summer Clayton and they both look to me and they're like, yeah, why? How do you know a mom? I said, I, I am going out to interview him. And they were like, What are you talking about? I'm like, Okay, well, apparently, I'm cooler than you thought. Thank you for being here. And you've just elevated, you know, my street cred with my own kids. And my youngest daughter hasn't even come in yet. So when I tell her she's gonna be like, What are you talking about? Mom? What are you saying? I should have been there earlier. So I really I love the idea of always taking people. This is what this podcast is all about the relaunch podcast. And I got to ask you, you've had some really significant relaunches in your life already at like, a very, you know, youthful age. But what would you say is the most significant so far, that has really set you up to be the proud dad, right?

Well, you know, as I continue to just go throughout life, I'm just adding to this story, this testimony that I get to use to share my faith and share how Christ is working in my life. Like if at one point, maybe it was just when I was starting my first graduate school, and I decided to drop out of my first graduate school was the first time I'd ever done anything that significant. That was terrifying for me, and I call my mom, she's like, in short, don't settle. Find something else to do. Use your time wisely, and then do what you actually enjoy. And so I said, Okay, you know, what I did my gap year, although I wasn't expecting to, I want to go from my undergrad, right into grad school, right into the workforce, work workforce. And I wanted to work and train elite athletics didn't end up doing that. And we'll circle back around there to the third or fourth or fifth relaunch that I'm currently experiencing. But I did my gap year and then graduated with my master's in kinesiology and sports performance, and decided, okay, well, now what I spent some time during COVID, doing working on a military base doing landscaping, until I was blessed with the jobs to fitness training as just a group fitness instructor. And then, at some point, I was blessed with this job to work with the US Navy aboard a naval carrier. And I was able to work directing fitness programs on that ship ended up leaving that job because I didn't want to deploy, you know, we would do these under ways in and out in and out three weeks at a time, two weeks at a time, because the ship was new. And they wanted to test all of these different components, they want to test the hangar deck and the flight deck and certify the pilots. And at some point, when you don't have all of your certifications, you got to go and deploy. And I said to myself, do I want to deploy living with two other people in a very small room? I do not. I wonder if I can find the same job. But working on shore. Around the same time, my tick tock was starting to blow up one of the first videos that actually brought people to my platform was me showing them simply how to shave. The second video, here was this. So this was the end of 2020. December, it was January, February around there. I remember the end of 2020. I wanted to have 1000 followers on Tiktok. At that time, I could go live. Since then they have reduced the number of followers you need to go live. But at the time, it was 1000. And it was because it was around the turn of the new year. My family had this tradition where we would pray out the older year and pray in the new year to spending our

time out. We pray out the old year in prayer. Yes,

absolutely. That was something that was started with mom and dad. And maybe somewhere along the line, their parents did it with him as well. But I wanted to bring it to the people who follow me to. To me, it was a very large following. I didn't know what to do. 1000 people was was crazy because I had all these messages and comments and I thought to myself, I just stick on top of every single one as an aside, but I digress. I was proud the odier pray in the new year and I never made it to that goal. But that's how I know around that time. I hadn't even hit the 10s of 1000s Hundreds 1000s Millions so around 2021 I had already been doing motivational style content as

your first thing was to Trim how to shave? Yes. Okay, I've seen it. It is so funny when you're like, Oh, you may not even really have you might just gray because that's so true, especially with teenage boys where they have, you know, they have like the the two years on the left, and they've got like the five on the chin.

Yes, yes, yes, like so much that a cat licking off. And that's a joke that I heard from my parents who's I figured, hey, I might pass it on to this audience, and maybe they'll get something out of it more. So it was, I think they enjoyed someone teaching them something. I will learn a lot over the course of during my tutorials, going from hygiene into cooking into the general with dads which then created a whole wave of other people who started to engage with my content, and then into mental health and fitness and wellness and faith. And just trying to diversify as a whole.

But Summer before we continue down this First off, this is you know, Father's Day. And we're right around there. It was interesting. My my dad who passed a couple years ago was also in the Navy, he was lieutenant and he taught on board. And so when you said that I'm like, Ah, I think my dad's here right now with us, which is a very sweet thing to think about. But what I love is that you started with just what triggered you to start with, Hey, let's just go with the shaving thing I'm going to, there had to be some there has to be some type of relaunch there that you're like, I'm gonna share this, was there a family member? Was there like what happened where you're like, Hey, I've decided I'm gonna go go live? And I'm going to shave?

Right? Absolutely. You know, when I first started using the TIC tock app, there was a lot of self indulgence, just either consuming content, or making content that I thought was funny, that I think is now terribly embarrassing. I have some old videos, my tic tock, don't even look.

You know, I'll go back and look.

But the people who follow me from the very beginning, they still enjoy it, it was corny, but that's kind of what it was, at some point, when I noticed that people started to follow me. It also felt like an opportunity to kind of lean into the community and just kind of nurture the community that I had. I can't say that there was a point in time where I said, You know what, there's a lot of fatherless kids, let me capitalize off of this. It was more so I like to nurture people, I feel like God has placed that sort of encouraging vibe or tendency in me and I get to use it, I get to use both the negative and positive experiences of my upbringing with my parents and with my peers. And I get to use that to build people up and encourage them. What really helped me to go full fledge into it, what really motivated me to do so was this idea of younger me, who would sit alone during lunch. And I often flashback to those memories of sitting alone. And sometimes whenever I see it in TV, or media, or when someone sends me a message in city either alone, or they ate with me, there's a little bit of excitement there because they're benefiting from my content, but the majority of it is just sadness for them. Because I don't want you to have to eat with me, I'm glad that you're getting some encouragement from me. But I want you to be able to have your own friends and community, it makes my heart hurts to hear that people are sitting alone or being bullied or going through such horrible stuff. So that's what really to me, motivates me today. So when I get those heart wrenching messages, or those heart wrenching comments, or flashback to the times where I was bullied and or the times where I sat alone, and I think to myself, I don't want other people to experience this. And so that's what pushes me to make the content that I do today, the POVs and the tutorials and the reminders about your mental health and pushing people towards Christ because I only want to have so headway. You

know, you have no like idea how this is resonating with me. I ran an internet security company to keep kids safe online for years, and I would go and I'd speak at middle schools and high schools. And I was always kind of paired up with a group called Rachel's challenge and it was the one from Columbine where the girl was killed, but she had this journal and she had this foreshadowing that this was going to happen. And in the journal she talks about that, you know, it's that one kind thing that you can do for someone or the chain reaction and after Everyone had been killed. And a boy came out and said, You know what I was planning to commit suicide. And the night that I was planning to do it that day, Rachel smiled at me and said something, and because that was a act of kindness, just a nice gesture she did. It allowed him to feel like you know why? Maybe the world isn't that bad. And I really see, like, I have chills down my body, that that's what you're doing. You're providing those kids that may be being bullied, that may not have friends right now, that may feel lost, that may not have the parent in the family situation. And you're giving them you're giving them your time and your heart to really connect with them. So I gotta again, just shout out to you because it's so impactful. Now your childhood. Can you share with us what was that like, and there's relaunches there too.

There's a lot of transition in my childhood, we were a family of little means. But we are also a very spiritual family. But sometimes those things have their own effects, I would say, because we were a family of little means whether we were able to control it or not. There were times where there was stress. And I know my parents helped it. I know that we felt it. My parents knew that we were in neighborhoods that were not really conducive to raising a family. They had to find ways to keep us disciplined, keep us safe. And some of those methods of discipline, I think, caused me and my dad to drift apart a little bit. He was really just the disciplinarian, as loving and as protective as I can remember him being he was also the disciplinarian. And so that caused us to drift a little bit. And during those times where I would be transitioning from this elementary school to this one, or this middle school to this one, I mean, after six high schools, it gets to be a bit hard to really have close, tight knit friendships. And to feel confident, maybe some of the reasons that people picked on me was because it was awkward. But I think it was just because a lot of kids at that time in their lives needed something to step on to, to elevate themselves, all of those effects, some of which stick with me today. But all of those effects kind of made for at some points, a childhood that I feel like there wasn't a lot of time to just stop and be and put down roots. That continues a lot into my adulthood. I've moved so many times, which you can probably talk about later. But between the relationship with my dad, which is gone, leaps and bounds, so much better. And the experiences in my childhood, those things I think, really helped me to have a bit of perspective and a bit of experience to relate to other people who are going through similar things and tell them, you can come out on the other side. Okay.

So Summer, do you have a better relationship? You said, now with your dad, I did see one one video that you guys did together, which I thought was really cute, but it sounds like this proud dad has actually helped your relationship flourish. Yes.

And I would say it's also the ability of my dad to also be able to chat with me, you know what, when you're young, you're an adolescent. You don't always agree with your dad. And I'm sure that my dad's actions towards me, whether in love or in frustration, or both more likely, wanting to protect us they had unintended consequences. But when I left home, I think that was the biggest determinant of us being able to build together again because we had space was that the term the phrase distance makes the heart grow fonder or something like that. But as a teenager, you're in the house with a person that makes you frustrated. And sometimes you are being you're over exaggerating things. You're being dramatic, and sometimes your parents can grieve your kids that just happens, no parent is perfect. But as I have space, had the ability to come back around and actually enjoy these conversations with empathy, understanding where he was coming from understanding what my parents are are coming from and how they grew up. And it helped me to understand, okay, you know what? I'm upset and frustrated now. This is what they went through. This is why they went to such limits to protect us. And at the end of the day, my parents are just getting older. I, if I'm going to spend the rest of my life just being better. And I'm, I'm really literally just what's the word? I'm literally just wasting this relationship that we have. That's how you

are so wise, above your years, my friend, I do want to tell you, I was a single mom, three kids, you know about my twins, Derek and Danny. And I'll never forget. My son, Derek love to dress up. And he came down and he had gone into a drawer. And I think that there was a bow tie in there. And he comes downstairs, he says, Mom, Mom, I'm gonna wear this to dinner with you tonight. And I think it was actually Mother's Day. And I always did this with my son. I always had Mother's Day with him. Because down he's like, Okay, help me help me tie it. And I'm like deer in headlights? Were well, I don't know how to do that. And so he says, okay, okay, no problem. I think that there, you know, I'll just wear the shirt. No problem. He was being so sweet. Well, it comes down about 30 minutes later. And he had gone on YouTube. And had basically taught himself how to tie a bow tie. And so when I started watching yours, I literally got tears in my eyes, that it's not just, you know, I mean, you're connecting. And you have the ability to connect with all ages, all ages can appreciate because again, it brought my own raising of my children into perspective. I watched recently, one of your how to fold a fitted sheet, right? I had, I'm the one that rolls those up. And I kind of like patted down on the top. Yes, yep. I do that. And it looks terrible. And I'm watching this. I'm like, oh, summer that is so good. So then what do I do I send it to my kids. I'm like, Hey, I never taught you this. But this is really good stuff. I mean, it is so I love Okay, so tell me, which are the segments that you that just really light you up, if you could only do that type of segment, because you have the How to you got the dinners, you got all these different things that you're getting into, as you said, what really truly lights you up?

Well, that's a good question, I appreciate you asking that. I really enjoy being able to help people to feel emotion, there's some videos that I create, that are higher production, I just use my higher quality camera and I spend a lot of time editing and all those sorts of things. And they're usually on a specific topic. I don't get a lot of time to do those very often. And truthfully, I know people don't really watch them because they're not short enough. But I really love those because they make me feel something when I'm creating them. And they make other people feel something when they when they watched it. And that's what I know I've accomplished something. So I would say that dinner with dads fall into that category. I liked the tutorial stuff. I liked the life skill stuff. But sometimes I feel like I'm spreading myself so thin. And it really would be very nice to be able to just go a little bit deeper into talking about some of the things that we're all playing to have some of the maladies that we're all working through, whether it means having these conversations with you, Hillary, or being able to interview other people, or just being able to dive deep into my faith and some of the things I struggle with and being able to be transparent about those things. Those are the things that I really love to do. But also just being able to have fun with the community when I was first starting out. And I know that things have shifted a little bit amongst the people who follow me. But when I was first starting out, maybe a million or two, I was able to like I have this really fun and light relationship with the people who follow me. They would make jokes in the comments and I would make jokes right back to them. It's very hard to do that now. Because if I were to let that side of myself, go on to my tick tock, people are like, are you okay? Does that make you like, I'm fine. You just weren't here two or three years ago, and this was a normal thing to do. So I just really enjoyed being able to evoke emotion, bring people into the community and talk transparently about things that we all struggle with, but that sometimes it's just hard for us to speak about.

You know what you have right now that is happening. You're an entrepreneur and you have you're scaling massively, very quickly. And I can't tell you how many people listening are like I'm feeling like I'm spread too. then. And so what we always talk about is kind of really going back to we call it three HQ, the headquarters of you your head, your heart, your highest self, your connection with God being in your best version of you. And leaning into that side, because you're right, you can do this, you can do that you can do that, that that. I mean, you're, you're like the man that can do it all. But you're finding that it's hard to do. So as your eyes you're really going forward. And you we only have 24 hours in a day, right? How do you manage your time right now? I love the life. It's like, isn't one of those Am I Am I managing my time right now? I sleep two hours a night now.

I'm not as busy as people think that I am. There are sometimes where I am. Right now life is really, it's it's not settled. Because I've moved around so much. You know, I, I lived in North so I lived in California born and raised in California, we moved to North Dakota as a family, because there was an oil boom going on at a time. So my parents want us to be able to have a better life. So I finished my fifth and sixth high school out there in North Dakota, did my undergrad in between three different universities because I couldn't choose what I want to do. And then did my went to Colorado for a portion of grad school and did my gap year out there that went back to North Dakota and then moved to Indiana for my graduate school, oh my gosh, back to North Dakota, and then moved to Virginia for that job. But then he moved back to North Dakota, and then moved to Mississippi to work with the Air Force. And then I moved to California for a job that I got fired from. And now I'm here in Kansas, so I have not been settled.

I gotta say I write about a ton of moves and attended a ton of houses in my book, I have a chapter on them, because I had so many. And you did such a masterful job of remembering all these things. I'm like, okay, and then where did I go? Okay, so you so you, you have this unsettledness? My, my my grandma used to call the divine discontent of like, like, where am I supposed to be? Where? Where can I take root? And how are you going to at this point? You know, you're talking about this, this moving around? And timing and you're like, hey, I actually have more time than you think. But you're 28? Do you want to be a dad? Someday? Is this something that you're thinking? Do you or I don't know if you're in a relationship, not in a relationship. But is that something that you're thinking about?

Yes, I am. It's really cool. Talk about time management. And I want to hit back on that really quickly. I didn't want to, to go unanswered. As I've been doing so much transition, I've let my allow myself to rest and know that the timing that I produce content, it's okay to not produce three pieces of content every week. Sometimes I can just recall other cuts that I made in the past, then that's okay. Because God's blessing with the platform. He's blessing me with the growth, as much as I want to be a good steward of what he's blessed me with, which is what I'm in this season doing now be more consistent by posting and all that sort of stuff. It's crazy when I was working those jobs full time didn't have the time to be as consistent. But now that I'm not working all the shops and those really, labor are not leveraging mentally intensive work and I'm not in school anymore. I can get better Stuart and this is the recent growth Instagram the recent growth on Tik Tok, it just propels me into believing that this is what he has for me. And as I've gone into the schools and done my subbing and been around some of the students that have enjoyed my content, or have, for example, when I was in this middle school classroom, it kind of wrenched my heart a little bit. I was talking to one of the younger it was elementary school, one of the younger kids in fourth grade. And he was telling me that someone took the computer he always uses and he was so upset by that. He started to cry and my heart was like, It's okay. You don't have to cry. I was just feeling so empathetic towards him. I told him Hey, you know what, sometimes we're gonna go through things, we're gonna go through change. And change is not always comfortable. But sometimes there are little things that we could do. So while you may not be able to have the best your computer with the screensaver that you added, maybe you can go through and adjust some of the themes on the wallpaper and make it feel personalized to you. And those experience was with those youth, whether elementary or middle school or high school and seeing them out there worse sometimes and seeing them at their best and congratulate them. It really gets me like a ha it'd be super cool to have my own kid whether I foster or adopt. I just like tapping my feet down here because it makes me so excited. I don't know when that's gonna happen. Obviously not right now. I'm not in a position to do so. But I do say no

foster or adopt, it's kind of like you're leaving it very open. Sounds like you're, you know, your your connection with Divine is so strong that it's wherever it's going to lead you and be the right place. Absolutely. Well, I also have to say, this morning, we got we got bad news about my stepson. He has only been 21 for probably a month, finally, you know, gets good. It's a passed down car, and couple days ago was stolen. So he's not able to come today, or he'll come tonight or tomorrow because he's dealing with the police and everything. And I witnessed my, my husband talking to him this morning, because he's just, you know, everything was this car. And you know, so excited for the freedom and, you know, now I don't have this and I heard Eric, I call him II. He said, You know why? It's a car. It's a car, and we're gonna get you to Colorado Springs, we're gonna have an incredible time the family. And you know what, we'll worry about that later. You know, right now, it's about getting you here. And it was such a beautiful Father's Day kind of moment. And I'm hearing you as you're going through, you know, these stories and I just, I gotta tell you, you are just whenever it happens, whether it's you know, it continuing to grow this audience, it's just so wonderful to see your dedication to humankind, to the kids. And as I said, it's women like me that were that were single moms, it's there's the reach is so huge. But you talk about the fun element. And you just have this like, I talk about my fun element. And I'm like Lucille Ball, right? I Love Lucy, I got that that side to me. Who would you say? Is your like this alter ego around your your funny bone around? What makes you laugh? Well, it's, I love to hear already laughing.

Well, it's really, I can, I can have to be very careful with the sides of me. Nowadays, especially because of that shift in my audience, they just don't understand. If I'm ever being comical or ever make a reaction video, or if I'm ever just doing something that I think is funny. As small example, some people will make videos, list videos, and they will say for example, this is what I think of these 10 cars, and they will associate certain personalities to those cars, like for example, the 2003 Nissan Altima, or the Jeep Wrangler, or this, like they'll say these personalities to them. And of course, they're alternate jokes, some of them can be a bit more biting, some of them can be a bit more cheeky, or whatever. If I were to do those, now, I have to go through a whole different set of questions that I asked myself, I have to say, what if someone in my followers list has one of these cars, I don't want them to feel less than because I am even in just making fun of these cars. So a lot of the other side of me is a lot of dry humor, but only my coworkers and my family and friends get to see that I don't let a lot of it go online. And I wish I could because there's a whole other portion of me. But I want to be really cognizant of the people that follow me. And even some of the things that they see me promote. There's a lot of Kristen will tell you, there have been a couple of times where

I have seen as the producer she's on right now. She's doing amazing work here at the relaunch podcast. Yes, sorry,

my bad. She will tell you there have been times where certain brands have come into my inbox and I turn them down, even though I definitely need the money because I'm like, I don't need people to see me promoting these luxury brands. Because I'm not about that lifestyle. I'll choose a Honda Civic over a BMW. I'm not a louver. Tonga, take me to the Walmart clearance rack. It's about being sensible with your money, being smart. It's all those things. I filter myself as I hit record, nowadays, especially because I don't want people to feel less than or to feel excluded. But it's

hard though. When you start to get into the hundreds of millions of fans and people which you're going to get you're going to be there. It's hard to you can't please everybody, right. And so filtering, I want to see the real you and it's kind of like the people that are going to be signing up and wanting to follow you want to follow the real you so just think about that. But before we end, I have to ask you all right Father's Day, and I love that I'm asking you to do this but if you could speak to fathers All across the country, all across the world. And say one thing, one thing this Father's Day, after all that you've learned, after all these conversations with all these people, on your social media, what would it be?

I would say there's no such thing as a perfect father, I play the role of an internet father, and all of my advice is perfect. And I'm going to, I'm going to qualify that all of my advice, and all of my timing and all of that. The tutorials are perfect, because I have time to edit, I have time to bounce my ideas off of family and friends. I'm not doing the real work of a father, you're doing the real work of a father or you have the ability to do the real work, father. So kudos moreso to the people who are out there and having to be the bad guy or be the good guy or cry with your kid and laugh with your kid and celebrate and encourage them. You have the real opportunity to change a kid's life around if me someone online who's doing internet dad work, through the messages and comments have the ability to uplift a kid how much more you being in your kid's life physically, they're trying your best to be a good father, as you do or try to do can have a role in your kid's life. So no such thing as a perfect father. I think just your presence there you have no idea how important it is in your kid's life.

I call them skeezy goals scary and crazy goals. Okay? Rocket goals that you want to that you would love to achieve? What would a scary and crazy a skeezy goal be for you? When we come back together? As an update, let's say this show second time around, I want you on next Father's Day, what would be a skeezy goal that you want to achieve?

If it's in God's will, it would be super cool to either get into acting or have my own variety show where I can do the hard talks through the cooking tutorials, the life skills all in one show inviting on other positive creators and just have that space. That would be a really crazy goal. I don't know if it's

from your lips, to God's ears, right? That's what they say. And you've just put that out there. You put it out there and I have no doubt that it will be and I'm going to do this I'm going to actually write it down to contact you and just see where you are in 12 months from right now. Well it has been so much fun having you here and to all of the fathers out there to everyone that is performing as a father image to anyone out there. Happy Father's Day, Summer. Thank you for being here and I'm so excited to continue to follow you and see where you're going. Kristin who as I said is our producer. I have no doubt you are going to I mean again, this is like rocket fuel you are on it Keep being you That's my only bit of advice. Just keep being authentically you because you are one charming, incredible man. So thank you again for being here. And as I always say, as we wrap this up, its relaunch your remarkable and Summer. You are truly remarkable. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me as well. And again, live now love now how are you going to relaunch now? How are you going to hear what we just heard from Summer and have that next you come out whether it's whether it's doing something crazy, like just going live one day and just trying to to make something that you know you're supposed to be doing and impacting in this world. So everyone we will look forward to having you back next week, and have a wonderful Father's Day. Take care