Welcome to Deathly – A Brief Overview Before You Begin

Your Journey

At Deathly, we assume you’re like us in that you’re extremely motivated to get your kid the best outcomes possible in their life. How you define what’s best is up to you, them, and their other parent (if that applies). We use Four Pillars to help you reach this goal:

• Envision your kid’s future - You need an azimuth to steer towards and you need to periodically refine where you’re aiming as life happens.
• Take inventory of your beliefs - Know your strengths and flaws so you can provide honest guidance both to yourself and to your kid.
• Understand your kid - Recognize your kid’s individuality so you can set realistic goals that don’t burn them out but also do not bore them. We believe proper stewardship of your kid should avoid two sins: breaking their joyful spirit by making every milestone feel like a fight for survival and robbing them of their full potential by handing them every victory served up on a silver platter.
• Invite your kid to understand you - Give your kid a richer understanding of who you are; let your kid understand where you are coming from to help them understand why you want what you want for them.

What is Deathly?

In its current form, Deathly is a guided writing journey built for fathers who want to be deliberate about the values and life lessons they pass on. Ultimately, Deathly is about creating the time and space for you to contemplate what you want to instill in your kid and how to make your legacy impactful to future generations. As the platform evolves, it will provide different frameworks to help you better track and refine the four pillars of the journey. It will also become more focused on assisting you with initiating the important conversations and making meaningful moments with your kid along the way.

Your Assignment - For Now…

By engaging with thoughtfully designed prompts, you will produce letters, essays, and reflections that will create and update The Record: a written legacy that captures some of who you are, what you believe, and what you want for your kid. The Record is there to help when you kick off important conversations and when you need inspiration to plan adventures of all sizes with your kid. You dictate what goes into and what stays out of The Record as you continue to hash out the right words or remember important details of a particular event. That way, you’ll be confident in its ability to serve as a valuable reference for your kid and their guardians should you die unexpectedly. It’s one part being ready to die and one part being intentional while you’re alive.

It’s What You Make of It

Some parents complete The Record over a weekend - some take longer. You might want to take months to refine a single prompt response but only need a few minutes to finish others. There’s no deadline and no wrong approach. And, when you’re ready, you should share as much as you can, as much as you feel is appropriate, with your kid.

What matters most is that you start. Because the conversations you haven’t had yet, the things your kid doesn’t know about you yet, and the version of yourself you haven’t written down yet - don’t preserve themselves. There is a version of the future in which the next generations of your family are influenced more by their knowledge of the life and beliefs of a Donald Trump, a Mark Zuckerberg, a Lebron James, or a Barack Obama than they are by what they know about you, your parents, or your closest friends. Then there is the version where you’ve invested in Deathly and in delivering your values, beliefs, and great moments in a systematic way. This version of the future leaves your kid and your kid’s kids a richer connection to their past and stronger foundation for their future.

Learn about Why we decided to start Deathly