- How do you build a company
and be a great father?
I mean, obviously this is just about being parents,
but I can only speak from the male point of view.
You know, over the last few years, I've had
the most amazing and crazy and stressful and nutty time,
not only building my companies but also just being a dad.
I don't know if you know this story, but three years ago,
we were blessed with the birth of our first son.
And at the exact same time that my wife got pregnant,
she started a company called Onboardly,
I started a new startup called Clarity.
And then we went through this nine-month period
of her being pregnant, moving, we decided
we needed a summer home close to our parents,
so that we could spend more time with the family,
and we worked on building a new house.
Nine, er, eleven months later,
two months after she gave birth
we found out that we were having our second son.
So essentially in a two-year period we built two companies,
had two kids, and we ended up building our dream home
because we needed to finally settle down for our family,
and I can't tell you, you know, how crazy that was.
But it really forced me to figure out kind of like
how do you, how do you do it all,
because I really didn't have a choice,
like these things were set in motion.
I ended up raising 1.6 million for my company Clarity,
and I needed to figure this out.
I also wanted to be an amazing father and present
and put in, you know, like to be sure
that I also helped and supported my beautiful wife Renee.
So, you know, to me, what I want to share with you guys
is kind of five strategies that I've figured out.
Not a perfect, there's probably people
watching this video that are amazing fathers,
amazing husbands, and I bow down to you, I'm still learning.
But these are the strategies that worked for me.
The first one is boundaries, really understanding
where do you work and where do you play,
and I feel like sometimes a lot of people,
they don't think about those boundaries.
That say, you know what, on Saturdays, those are family days
and those are sacred, those are non-negotiables.
Or first thing in the morning,
that's when I spend time with my kids because, you know,
I'm not going to see them for the rest of the day.
Or maybe you figure out with your partner
how do you do hand-offs.
And a lot of times people think that is very rigid
and scheduled, but I've got to be honest with you
without that structure it's going to be really hard for you
to have an impact in both aspects in your life,
both in the relationships with your kids
and in your business.
So really having those boundaries and figuring out
the non-negotiables for both sides, the things like,
you know, maybe you say, "I will always be there
"for my kids' birthdays and that's a non-negotiable".
So that way, you know, if you decide that now,
then when some big important, you know, event happens
in your business, you can actually say,
"You know, I can't do that" and that's just part
of kind of the decisions you made up once.
So I sat down and I made those boundaries
and worked with my wife to figure out how they,
they kind of came to be.
The other one is to be present.
You know, I think I'm guilty of this with my phone,
especially with my friends, where I'm easily distracted
because I'm a tech guy, I build software companies.
So one thing that I always remind myself
that I'm with my kids, I mean at a minimum,
if you've ever texted and droven your car,
or even just pulled out your phone to,
I don't touch my phone when I get in the car,
that is a rule.
You know, maybe it's just the sense of responsibility now
to these two beautiful lives in the backseat,
that is just a non-negotiable for me.
The other thing is when I'm with them,
I make sure that I'm present, that I'm a 100% focused
on what they're doing, you know.
I call this ground time, you know.
The thing the kids want the most is your time
set on the ground playing with them, you know,
that's really all they want.
So you're going to ask yourself, how much ground time
are you getting a week with your kids
if you have a business.
And I know it's tough because in business you're always
thinking like, "I'm doing this for my family."
Trust me, we'll go over that at the end of this video,
but, you know, if it's really for your family,
think about what they want the most.
They want you to be present and available, you know.
The third strategy is the two roles,
and I learned this from an amazing woman, Esther Perel.
She wrote a book called "Mating in Captivity",
and I had the absolute pleasure to run into her at an event,
and see her speak, and then Renee and I were over there,
and we got to sit down and talk to her about
how do you think about building companies
and being entrepreneurs.
We're two entrepreneurs in our family,
we both have aspirations to leave a big impact
and build businesses,
but we also want to be amazing parents.
And she talked to us about these two roles.
One is the CEO of family inc,
and the other one is the CEO of relationship inc.
And usually the family inc is the person that just naturally
always thinks about the family's wellbeing,
obviously that's my wife,
and sometimes it's the guy,
you've just got to decide who that is.
And then the relationship inc is the person
who's responsible for the relationship
because if you think about it, your kids want nothing more
than for you guys, the parents, to be amazing and happy,
and that's all they want.
So having somebody that's a 100% focused on that,
ensuring that the relationship,
so the date nights are scheduled,
that you're doing maybe quaterly retreats like we do,
where we disconnect, no phones, just for us two,
where we make sure that we spend time
talking about kind of our future
and our plans and all that stuff.
And then on the family side, Renee's always thinking
about the kids, that they have sunscreen on,
I mean these things that just naturally don't happen to me.
Don't hate me, I'm just telling you
like the first thing I do when I wake up
is not check the wheather to see if the kids
need to be lathered in sunscreen,
but I understand the importance.
And because I now know there's these two roles
I have such an appreciation for what she does,
and she has an appreciation for what I do
when I think about the relationship.
When she knows I'm trying to get some time on our calendar
so that we can do our retreats.
I mean, these are commitments, four days disconnect,
we've got to get the babysitter,
we've got to figure out where we're going to go,
we need to kind of plan what we're going to do
during that time.
She understands why, because it's for us.
And when she, you know, cleans the house
before the cleaning lady shows up
because that's what she does as a mother,
I totally respect that and appreciate that
because she's doing it for the family.
Those two roles are absolutely incredible.
The fourth I want to share with you guys is block time.
Understanding in your calendar to get things done,
major projects initiative,
the big rocks sometimes are called,
you've got to block it out in your calendar.
Like if you're working on a big project
and you haven't actually blocked the time to do it.
I mean everything from, if you're going to write a book,
you've got to go in your calendar,
for like 12 weeks block it out.
If you want to start a new marketing initiative for Facebook
the next five days you've got to block out your afternoons
and actually get the work done.
If you actually can block out the time at work
and make it a non-distraction environment
where nobody else can call you, or reach out,
and you're actually doing that work,
you're going to be able to have the impact in your business
and you're not going to feel like the Satudays
or the Sundays, you're spending the whole days
with your families, are times
when you couldn't be getting caught up
because trust me, most of us are distracted.
We spend way too much time on things
that don't move the needle.
And block time for me is how I get,
essentially I clean my day, I get my day back
by not worrying about all the thousand things
that are other people's to do busyness
and actually working on the things for myself.
And now, finally, I want to share with you guys
the fifth thing is don't sacrifice your family
for your business.
And maybe you say, "Well, of course I would never do that",
but trust me I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs
for whatever reason they just justify to themselves
that they're doing it for their family.
You know, I'm not even going to argue that side of it,
I'm going to argue the fact of the disruption.
If you do not spend the time on the family
throughout as a consistent thing,
the impact and frustration of fighting
and the issues you're going to introduce to your kids,
and you're going to have to deal with that,
or maybe worst case you guys get divorce
and you have to deal with the divorce.
Trust me, just think about.
Just make it work because it's overall going to give you
that support that you need to actually build the business,
and it's not going to distract you.
If you do all the other things, I believe you can have both,
you can have an amazing relationship with your kids
and your wife, and you can also build a great
world-changing high-impact company at the same time.
It's just going to take some discipline and some structure.
If you like this video, please like the video,
leave me a comment below with any other strategies
that you have for really making the entrepreneural side meet
and work great with the family side
because it's something that I know a lot of you guys
are having to deal with, with new babies on the way
or young kids.
I'd love to hear from you below in the comments.
I want to challenge you guys to live both a bigger life
and a bigger business.
That was what we talked about in this video.
And I'll see you guys next Monday.