Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Did you know I've had my podcast for 15 years? Do you know that it is

the most downloaded sports podcast of all time? Did you know I have guests from the sports world,

from the culture world, people who work for the ringer, people outside the ringer, celebrities,

experts? You name it. It's on my podcast three times a week, late Sunday night, late Tuesday night,

late Thursday night. The Bill Simmons podcast, check it out on Spotify.

One of my favorite writers is Martin Amos, and he once said that life is full of ordinary

miracles and ordinary disasters. In the ordinary miracle, birth, two people into a room,

and three come out. And in the ordinary disaster, one person enters a room and none come out.

This show has been dark for the last few weeks because an ordinary miracle in my life came

several weeks ahead of schedule before I had time to fully prepare for it either psychologically

or logistically in terms of prepping future podcasts. My wife gave birth to our daughter,

the first week of August. My daughter turns four weeks old the day I'm writing this.

And I remember it when people asked me in the weeks before my daughter's birth what I imagined

fatherhood would be like. I told them to a person, honestly, I am trying not to imagine it. That's

what I said. I'm trying not to imagine it. I said, I'm trying not to attach any particular

prediction, expectation to an experience that I frankly had trouble envisioning. Plus, I

received so much advice and so many tips and hacks, so many habits and strategies and purchasing

recommendations, so many words of wisdom and words of warning from friends and family

that I decided to go into the experience as blank as in as tabloirasa as possible be prepared

for anything and everything. I don't know if that sort of zen approach to imminent fatherhood

has actually worked out. I think you might need to ask my wife or my best friends.

But I can definitely attest that fatherhood has been everything and nothing I expected.

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