Video interview with Kevin Barnett coming soon. Check back shortly to watch this exclusive conversation.
In the wake of social upheaval and pandemic isolation, Kevin Barnett found himself asking profound questions about his purpose and community impact. The tragic killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, combined with COVID-19 lockdowns, created a crucible moment that gave birth to CoolxDad, a membership-based organization connecting fathers to each other and their communities. What began as virtual check-ins among friends has evolved into a movement that hosts events, partners with the Houston Rockets, creates commerce opportunities, and reshapes narratives around fatherhood, particularly for communities of color.
How did the idea for CoolxDad come about during such a challenging time?
I was in Houston, Texas, that’s where I reside, and it was Q1 of 2020. So just kind of painting the landscape, so you can understand where the thought process came from, but there was a lot of heaviness in the world, and a lot of uncertainty. I had never been in a situation like this ever where social injustice, uncertainty, was at a crossroad. With the George Floyd murder, Breonna Taylor murder, loss of Kobe, I mean even my wedding had to get postponed due to Covid, being locked down in Houston.
I found myself thinking about things that I had never thought about. Like, how do I show up for my community? How do I be a part of a change that I want to see, and God spoke to me.
He spoke to me, very clear and very intentional, and he seeded this idea, which was called CoolxDad. I reached out to some brothers, and I shared this vision with them about this idea, and they were like, man, so what do you want to do with it? And I was like, Hey, what we got right now is Zoom, and let’s just get together to talk about the climate so we could check in on each other, and that’s kind of where the origin of CoolxDad started from.
When you think about checking in emotionally with other dads, what do you think they get out of that experience?
I speak for myself because it started with me, the transformation started with me. The vulnerability and leading with that allows people to really see you, and that’s something that sounds very obvious, where it’s not, especially when you’re talking about a man, and then you add on a black man. We walk outside every day and feel that we have to put on a mask where we have to dance the dance, and when you can release that and begin to walk into your truth and walk into your identity, that’s when I think positive change.
Our children are watching us every day, the best example that a child is ever going to have is coming through their parents, and so this model behavior, this self identity and this self-esteem comes through if we’re modeling that, and I think that’s what vulnerability allows. It allows our children to realize, you can be human, you can be yourself. We live in instant gratification now, everything is at the fingertip. We see a lot of suicides, and these different things happening because people are not being able to release and really feel like their authentic selves, and so I think it’s very important for us to to lead with a vulnerability.
Tell us about your retail concept, One Dream, and how it connects to CoolxDad’s mission.
The commerce has always been a part of me, I’ve been in retail marketing business, that fashion world for about over 20 years. It was about 2018, maybe 2019, a little after my first child was born that I realized that the transactional life was not for me anymore, and I was great at it. I mean, I could sell water to a whale, but there’s a beauty in when a customer comes in unknowingly looking for something, and you can actually help them, before a wedding, for a dinner. It became personal for me.
What we built with One Dream, which is our retail concept, is a community space, a space where we can still fill a person who has no idea about CoolxDad. We can still come in and fill them up, and give them some purpose, and where they’re heading while still supporting the nonprofit. So we call this retail for a purpose, and all the brands that we carry are brands that do not have brick and mortars.
I intentionally wanted to find these brands and carefully curate that because these are the dreamers, and that’s why the name One Dream was birth, because CoolxDad was one dream that changed my life, and so the dreamers that we have inside the store, they’re still chasing that one dream. Our job is to connect the community, the customer to this one dream, and allow that to create this new exploration on why this customer is going to continue to be a lifer into this brand, because they bought into the story.
As a nonprofit, we’re utilizing the retail space now for where we can create commerce for our community. Now, we’re teaching new skill sets that the school doesn’t have time to teach. We’re seeing that now a lot of kids are not going to college, and I don’t know, by the time my children become adults, or of age to where they have to make the decision, I don’t know if college is going to be a thing, and so I’m trying to be practical now, and teaching from a young age all the way up that, hey? You could be a buyer, you could be someone that builds on content, we can teach them practical skills through our commerce now without having to be a father, because we didn’t want to push this male ego centric space in CoolxDad. We wanted to push more of a philosophy in a way of life.
If you were giving a speech to college graduates, what three challenges would you give them?
The first challenge I would give is to try to detach yourself away from their ego, because ego is the devil’s way of distorting our mind to believing that we actually can walk into our power, that’d be the first thing. Secondly, I would challenge these graduates on finding a mentor. I don’t think people understand how important a mentor is, and I’m speaking for myself, who went to college, who finished in 4 years, I wasn’t top of the grade, but I finished well in school.
But I didn’t use school as a tool, and then that carried on to real life because I didn’t use that skill set, and that skill set was partner with my counselor, seeing the value of someone pouring into me, and then going out into the world and seeking that continuously.
The last thing would be not to be afraid to fail, because it’s a part of the journey. Nobody who’s sitting where they wanted to, where they’re supposed to be today would tell you that there wasn’t a bunch of failure before they got there, and so those would be the 3 practical things that I would challenge a new class of graduates in understanding, because I had to learn the hard way, but now my job is to ensure that the ones coming up under me have an understanding of here’s a road to get you to where you’re gonna be in life.
