Latest / Quarterback DadCast | Intentional Fatherhood & Leadership at Home / Tod Francis - Unlocking the Secrets of Meaningful Parenting: Insights from Venture Capitalist

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Tod Francis - Unlocking the Secrets of Meaningful Parenting: Insights from Venture Capitalist · Quarterback DadCast | Intentional Fatherhood & Leadership at Home

• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Riley and I'm Ryder, and this is my dad's show.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Hey everybody, this is Casey Jaycox and welcome to season five.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: I'm very excited for this episode.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: I'm also very excited to announce we have a brand new sponsor to the podcast our friends Lauren Jones and Rob Mann over at Leap Advisory Partners.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: I could not be more excited and thrilled that you're going to be sponsoring this for the next 13 weeks.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Let's hear a little bit more about what you guys are doing from Lauren.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Leap Advisory Partners is proud to sponsor the Quarterback Dadcast.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Our first core value is empathy, always, and that's why we're proud to sponsor the Quarterback Dadcast for the most authentic discussions around failure, success, leadership, empathy, leading with empathy.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: If you're not familiar with Leap Advisory Partners, we are your technology partners to help you build with excellence, change your process and adopt your most important investment.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Now let's get to today's episode with Casey Jaycox.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Well, hey, everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the Quarterback Dadcast.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: We're in season five.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: We are getting towards the tail end of season five and if you're watching this on YouTube, thank you for watching and subscribing and not just listening in your car, but taking time to see what this crazy bald dude like me looks like.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: And I'm really excited about this next guest because I think that the theme of everybody we've interviewed on the quarterback podcast has either been a personal referral or someone said you got to talk to this person, which is exactly what happened, why our next guest, todd Francis, is joining us.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: He gets.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: He got referred by a guest that actually has not been interviewed yet and his name is Don Goldberg, the CEO and founder of consultant at a fantastic company.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: He told me a story about how him and Todd met in Hawaii.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: They're kite surfers.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: He gives them a ride.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: It's like crazy story.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Then they become like really good buddies.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Todd is a fantastic dad you're going to learn about.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: He is someone who enjoys the outdoors.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: He's someone who is working hard to create memorable moments and for us parents and get us to think about things differently.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: He's a venture capitalist.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: I know we didn't want to talk a lot about it.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: We've got to tease him a little bit.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: He's doing great things over at Shasta, but today we're going to talk about Todd the dad, and how he's working hard to become that ultimate quarterback or leader of his household.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: So, without further ado, mr Francis, welcome to the Quarterback Dadcast.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thanks for having me.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: I look forward to getting into it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Cool, well, I know we.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: So you are like one of the lucky ones, because we, we did.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: We did a little bit of prep before, and usually we don't do that, but I'm glad we did and I almost wish you would have recorded our first conversation, because there's a lot, a lot of gold in that.
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: um, well, we can we can get into it all here, and the one thing I just do want to mention for your readers is this is not just my thoughts about creating memories with kids, but I went out and interviewed over a thousand people young adults to see what mattered to them, so I did want to just put it in perspective.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: It's really, you know, some well-researched insight that I've been able to gain.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm excited to get into it.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: I'm going to use my curiosity and patience to eventually.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Eventually we'll get there, but, but today, in every episode, we always start with gratitude.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: So tell me, what are you most grateful for as a dad today?
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: Well, this is an easy one because I just came back from a multi-day backpacking trip in the High Sierra with my two boys and so many great things about that.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: I love being outdoors, I love being on the trail, but, most importantly, the three of us together was just magical.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: It's literally some of the best days of my life.
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: So super appreciative of that and really neat thing, they planned it, they planned the route, they carried some extra stuff for me, and so it was their effort too.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: It wasn't just me making them do it, it was really fun.
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: Oh, that sounds awesome, I bet that was a trip that had very uh, I would say limited device time and more just in person time relationships.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: 100 yeah, you know we were very much off the grid, so it was awesome so good.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: Well, what I'm most grateful for, um, as a dad, um, a couple things.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: One, um, well, two things.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: One for my son, my daughter I'm grateful for.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I'm grateful for snapchat, as random as that is, because, uh, I resisted snapchat.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: But the ripe old age of 48, I said I guess I'm grateful for snapchat, as random as that is, because, uh, I resisted snapchat.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: But the ripe old age of 48, I said I guess I'll try it, what the hell?
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: And now I have like a 50-day consecutive streak of communicating with my son over snapchat.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Now we talk and text but like he'll send me funny things.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: I'll send him funny things and it's like it just it's fun to be able to have that like that little corny time with your kid and your son.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: And whether it's, you know, I'll take a picture of me getting ready to work out.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: I'm going to say, and I'll say, hey, right, you're not going to recognize dad in like an hour and be so jacked you don't even recognize me.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: You know we have this like banter back and forth.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: And then I'm grateful for my daughter, just like the small things, small wins about just work, ethic and grittiness, and my daughter's obviously a very tough, uh, five foot four basketball player that plays like she's six eight, uh, does not back down from anybody.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: And uh, monday night she she had a back game this weekend, but then Monday, uh, she does a little training and she was just going to go 90 minutes of it.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: I said, well, you know, I just keep your body arrest and and let's get home, get a good night's sleep.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: And she's like, yeah, you're right, dad.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Well, after the training she calls us and she goes hey, is it okay if I stay for another 90 minutes?
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: I want to play open gym against these people.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: I'm like 100% yes, as long as your homework's done.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: But I'm grateful for her work ethic and her drive and it's just fun to see your kids like passionate about something and then continue to put in the work.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: So I never take that for granted.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Sounds good, those are good.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Well, okay, sir.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: Well, bring me inside the Francis Huddle.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: You're the quarterback.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: I'm guessing your wife's a general manager, but tell us who's on the squad and a little bit about each member of the team and how you and your wife met too.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's my wife, bonnie and I, and then we've got two boys who are 29 and 32.
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: And my wife and I first met at work Johnson Johnson at our first jobs out of business school and we moved to San Francisco together to start our lives together and we've been here since.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Very cool.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: And the boys?
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: They're local, near you too.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: They do.
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: They live in San Francisco, yeah, so we have that very fortunate dream scenario where we're about 30 minutes away from them, so accessible but not kind of in each other's way.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Very cool.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Well, I know, in our prep I remember you set a state and you're like you know, casey, now I'm not going to be like all your other dads and you know my, my childhood was different and and you told me a little bit your story and I said you'd be surprised Cause I, for all the other folks who've listened, there's been some quite a few dads we've I've interviewed who maybe didn't have the ideal relationship with their mom or their dad, and I think I shared with you that my, my friend, chris Nielsen, his episode, which I think was just very powerful, and I I love Chris and Chris is one of the most hands-on dad.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Mr Nielsen, I hope you're listening to this brother, but take before too much that.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Take me back to what was life like growing up for you, todd, and talk about you know some, some of that journey that's maybe shaped you today, and then think about some of the core values that came from that experience now that you're a father.
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I grew up in a household with my mom who is amazing, she's a school teacher a household without a father present, and so I didn't have a playbook on how to be a dad or how to do that, but I always dreamed of it.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: I always dreamed of having a relationship with my kids, because I didn't really have that growing up, so my father moved away when I was four, I think, and then wasn't present in bringing us up or in our household or really present much at all.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: So that was a challenging relationship, for sure, and yeah, but my mom was amazing and was just a great parent to be part of.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: Is mom still with us?
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: Nope, nope, just passed away a couple of years ago, but she led an incredible life, and one that you know just.
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: She ended up being quite a contributor to our community and her community in Indiana, indianapolis, and was an amazing role model for all of us and for everybody she met.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: Actually, she was really a spark.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: Where do you think her grit and spark and energy?
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Tell me, where do you think that came from?
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: Gosh, she's super smart, grew up at a time when women weren't supposed to be working or doing anything.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: Then she, when my dad left, she had to go get her finish her degree, got her master's in education so she could have a job and support us, and I think she was just absolutely driven to provide a great household for us.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: And she's also just very intellectually curious, so I think it was very natural.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: It was almost like she was unleashed when she was not only allowed to, but had to become the head of the household and provide for all of us.
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: So it was just there for sure.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: My, my excitement went up when I heard curious, my favorite words, and people know that follow me and follow the work I do.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: I, I'm obsessed with curiosity.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: It is a superpower that many of us forget to unlock and unleash every single day.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're to think about, about like besides, like you know the toughness and grit and everything your mom taught you, but like if you did like really think through, like a couple of things that really come to mind and maybe a story that our audience might be able to like, tie to or relate to in their own life, tell me what comes to mind.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: So this is a woman who was five feet tall.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: Maybe this is a woman who was five feet tall.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: Maybe you know we always joked and said she was 4'12" and maybe a hundred pounds and like just huge amount of energy and huge smile and always the social, you know, center of the social thing.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: But again, very, very driven, very well read.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: She's a woman who would get New York Times, wall Street Journal and Barron's and read them cover to cover every day they came out.
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: That's the curiosity part.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, no, this is really exceptional.
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: But at the end of the day, the best stories with your parents are when you're off doing something, and I'd say sailing with her.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: She loved to sail, we had this little laser and just going across the lake and just knowing how special that was for her to have a break because you're raising three kids on a teacher salary is tough and to be up at our grandmother's house and be sailing across the lake and just see her have let go and have fun.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: That was.
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: Those are the most special memories I have with her.
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: But she set the role model for all of us that no matter what you're given, you're going to work hard and make it happen, and that's what she did.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: She just really did an amazing job.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: Wow, Now was this lakes in the Midwest when you were growing up, yeah, in Wisconsin, yeah, Okay, that's one part of the country.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: I'm actually going to Milwaukee here in a few weeks, but I've always wanted to go to the Great Lakes.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Because you fly over them, they look like oceans, but I'd love to be able to visit.
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, check out the lake scenes in Michigan and Wisconsin.
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: The smaller lakes are spectacular, it's unbelievable.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Well, it's on the list.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: I've told my wife multiple times maybe we'll wait when my daughter gets out of high school and we have all the time in the world to go.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: I said we got it.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: I want to hit that, eric.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Hey, I'm a golfer too, so I want to go up to like a Kohler area with whistling straights, yeah, whistling straights, yeah, um, okay.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: So you and you got two siblings.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: I do, okay, and what were they?
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: As impacted just as much as you were by your mom.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, oh yeah, everybody was who met her, but yeah, they definitely were, sure.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny how when, like so, my dad passed away December 29th 2021.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: We're tail end of season five.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: Every episode in season three I donate, I dedicate to him, and so it was like a year long eulogy type thing because, unfortunately, during I was kind of during covid and his such his health health situation was really challenging.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, I I kind of felt like my, when I was 23, I I dealt with what people like in their 50s would do with their parents aging, and so from 23 until 45, when my dad passed away, we were taking care of him emotionally, physically, um, and you think about wedding vows till you death the apartment my wife earned every one of those stripes, um, you know right, when telling my corporate career was taken off and just the stress of that with young kids.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: But when I think about what you said about your mom, like everybody loved, like my dad was, like the life, the party too, smart ass, funny.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Um wasn't the best seller, you know, but just a great guy, that, the dad that went to every game, the parent that just was there for me.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't think he passed down his handyman skills to me, because I'm probably one of the worst handyman in United States history, but it's fun to reflect and think about.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Like you know, like, oh, like, even like two weeks ago I played golf with a buddy.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: He's like, oh, man, your dad.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: It's so many good memories of him.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: And so, as you're saying those things about your mom, I feel like I could see this, even though I barely even know you.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: But I feel like I just met your mom.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I could see her, how you described it visually, and just the impact that, like that sparky little four foot 12 beast brought to the waters which you'd sail and so, okay, so you, you, you, you graduate, you, you, you, you get into business.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: But then sometimes, somehow, some way, this research project we'll call it uh, starts and you and you start to uh, get curious.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Maybe you use your mom's curiosity, um, and then you start on this path of parents and fatherhood.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: Um, take me back to, kind of, what sparked this passion or this research project for you.
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: Well, the original spark was I.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: Just number one priority in life was to have a good rapport with my boys, and so we were doing that and just always put that first and put time with them first.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: And we had, when they were younger, had just a lot of great experiences sharing together.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: I had the view that they could do anything, you know, when they were younger, had just a lot of great experiences sharing together.
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: I had the view that they could do anything.
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: You know, when they were four years old or older, because they were physically able, they were mentally able, we would just, we would do everything.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: We'd go on camping trips, we'd play golf, we'd play, you know, we just would do everything.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: We ski and we ski a lot.
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: And so we just had all these really tremendous experiences.
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: And when people started seeing that, when the boys were middle school and high school, when my friends started to see that, I was like, how do you get your kids to spend your weekends, you know, to go on these long mountain bike rides together?
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: How do you get your kids to do these long ski outings with you on the weekends when they're in high school and whatnot?
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: And it's what it got me going to think about wow, this is something different.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: And I was just working so hard, it was my number one priority, it was very natural, but I realized that other people didn't have that connection and so really the spark was when I went to a conference where it was user generated content and people can offer up topics, and I was like I'll throw this in the hat and see if anybody's interested.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: And the title was you know how to connect with your kids?
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: And I didn't expect anyone to come because you know it's parallel paths and all these other tech topics were happening and the room was jammed.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: And so when you ask what the spark was to take you to the next level was seeing all these people, hundreds of people in this room wanting to talk about connecting with their kids and this discussion that happened and people's challenges and also what people were doing.
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: That was great and how different people approach it.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: It's like, wow, this is a robust topic.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: I haven't seen anything on it and I realized at that time that it shouldn't be about my experience with just my two boys, because we live this outdoor kind of West Coast life that's not representative of others.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: You know, people have different types of lives, so I wanted to get input from a broad group of people and I went to a friend of mine who was at a research company and said hey, can you get me access to 18 year olds 18 to even 16 year olds and it's not a panel, they usually open up but he got me into it.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: We were able to send out surveys and questionnaires to 1200 young adults, if you will, aged kind of 16 to 20.
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: And the idea was to ask them what matters.
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: So many times, parents are talking about their views on what's supposed to be right, and my view was, well, we got to ask what they think, and so that was the goal was to learn from the recent youth and, by the way, we couldn't get a panel younger than that.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: I would have liked to have gotten middle school and high school, but that's not possible at the time anyway and we asked questions like how is your relationship with your parent, your mother, your father?
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: What's your greatest memory with your mother, father, kind of open-ended questions, and then a lot of multiple choice questions like of these activities which did you enjoy the most, and then like a final question of if you could design a day with your parents where you're in charge and not them.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: What would that look like?
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: So the survey and the research was more sophisticated than that, but that's just kind of a quick snapshot on the kind of attitude we were trying to get to.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: We wanted open-ended responses and then we also wanted to get some sense of percentages on certain types of activities, and then we brought that information or feedback together into some simple conclusions.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: And what's really interesting is that it was true.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: Oh, it's, by the way, it's across the US, every state in the country, every income, so across geography and income, and all the input was similar.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: Oh, and I should also point out, I put this survey on my Facebook page.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: At the time I was active with Facebook and got 250 people that way, so I could kind of say, okay, what does this universe look like?
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: Which might not be like the other one, but they were actually.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: All the input was the same.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: It was fascinating.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: It was all very, very, very similar.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: What was the?
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: If you recall?
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Can you think back?
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: What was the most eclectic or funny or random answer about?
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: About if I was to design the day I'd want my parent to take me to?
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: Well, here's what's fascinating.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: You would think it would be.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: All these answers would be exotic, like I'd want to go to whatever you know on a trip, or I'd want to go get a new car or something.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: You know what Most of the answers were I'd want to go back and hang out with them.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: The consistency was they actually do want to spend time with their parents.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: They just want to spend time in moments that aren't being judged, where there's not the parent-child stress, and so a lot of the answers were, you know, I'd just like to go back.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: I'd like to go on a walk, a hike.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: I'd like to go back and barbecue.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: I'd like to hang out.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: I'd like to hang out.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: I'd like to ask them about their life, I'd like to find out what it was like for them to grow up, and and then a lot and you'll hear my theme here a lot of side-by-side types of things.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: You know, bike rides just go, hang out.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: I think the main theme was and it was really fascinating learning because you would think your parents or your kids wouldn't want to spend time with.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: They actually do.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: It's just the type of environment they want to be in is one that's more parallel, more equal and more sharing than a typical parent-child relationship, where they're feeling judged.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: I want to stop you real quick and everybody at home.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: I hope you're taking notes, I'm taking notes.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: It's the second time I've talked to Todd, I'm taking notes and there's two key words.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: He said that I've underlined, I've circled and it says without judgment.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: So if, if you, if you didn't catch that, rewind it and listen to what he said again and think about activities where you've been with your son or your daughter, when you're now the controller, you're now the boss, you get to be the one in charge and you can judge him.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: And it's maybe it's that car ride home, maybe it's the the walk, maybe it's that you're tucking them in and you're and you're reminding them about the air they had at third base, or the spell or the or the grade they got to be when they should have gotten a um or all those things.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: And I think, if you're finding your son or daughter moving away from you, maybe this is a great chance, chance for us to look ourselves in the mirror and let's all check our ego today and and and um learn.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: But I think, I think it was really powerful.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: You said it hit me when you said it before.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: It'd be again today, and I reference the talent of Bruce Brown.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: Uh, bruce, if you're listening, I told Todd about the car ride home article.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: I will make sure that's linked in the show notes, everybody.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: It's a fantastic article by a former guest um who has got so much wisdom to share.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: But I think what you're talking about is every dad or mom's dream.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: How do we spend more?
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: How do we connect?
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: And the excuse sometimes is well, they're teens and they'll come back.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: Well, put in some effort maybe.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: So you said side by side, but maybe talk about the triangle you shared with me.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: So, first of all, just to hit on that point, I think parents can't help themselves.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: You know you get in.
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: The example would be I'll just build on that car ride home.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: You pick up your son or daughter from a soccer game, basketball, it doesn't matter what, and you think this is your bonding time.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: But what do you say?
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: How was the game?
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: How'd you do?
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: Who won?
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: Hey, what happened in the third quarter?
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: Like it was really close.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: Why didn't what didn't quite work?
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: Why, or often, what did we parents do?
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: Why did the coach put in Susie when they should have put you in?
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: Okay, a parent-child reporting relationship, that is very much a lot of our time as parents.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: It is a reporting.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Getting them to school, getting them to tutoring, getting them to music, getting them to sports is a lot about kind of being in charge and being the supervisor.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: So the key is to break out from that, okay.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: So let's come back to your question, the pyramid.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: So what we learn is if you think about your life everybody will relate to this, I'm sure.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: But just think of a pyramid and the bottom part of the pyramid is where 95% of your time is with your kids.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: That is what I call processing that's not a negative word, this is a very important term and need.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: It's processing, which means you're literally thinking about their food, their housing, their school, their interests, their activities, the driving.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: It's a lot of processes and a lot of moving parts, but that's not where memories are created, but that's where we have to put a lot of our time and it's very important.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: So what's interesting is to get to the next level, which is more sharing and side by side, by side time.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: You have to make some effort to get out of that processing mode, that parental judgment mode, the you know how is how is the soccer game, how is school going that mode and move into something where you're just seeing them, you're seeing each other more equally.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: So that's the next stage of the pyramid, which is what I call side by side connection.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: But there's multiple elements to this side by side area.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: And just think about your own life, when you often, if you want to, if you're going to go out with a friend let's say it's a friend, so we're not even talking about your kids You're not doing something where that friend is reporting to you.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: You're probably, you know, you're going on a walk, you're going on a bike ride.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: You're doing something more equal right.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: You're playing golf.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: The same goal with your kids is finding those types of environments, so that can be around like three areas where you have a shared interest with your child and you pursue it and you do something that's enjoyable.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: It could be the golf you mentioned sports.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: It could be cooking board games, that's something that comes up a lot Camping, a lot of outdoor activity, but shared interests, nobody's in charge and you're just kind of enjoying it and learning together.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: There's another version of this, which is and learning together.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: There's another version of this which is and we're still in this middle bracket of is child passion, where you see what your child is interested in and you actually follow them, you let them lead you and this requires a parent to literally like maybe put down their judgment quite a bit because maybe the child's doing something different than their own value system.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, I can make up an extreme example.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: They might have different political views than the parent and I'm using this as kind of a crazy example because right now it's so current but to follow them in their thought process or maybe it's not political views, maybe it's just an interest you have a parent who might be more of a reader and writer and you have a child who's more technical, well, follow them in their interests and go down that path.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: A good example would be a parent who told me their son loved trains, said why don't you go to the train museum?
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: Take the train to the train museum in Sacramento or whatever in Kansas City or Indianapolis and go and enjoy it with them and see it through their eyes.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: And so following the child passion is really neat.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: And then there's a third area to this bucket and that is learning something new.
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: So it's super powerful, this concept of learning something new, and it comes back to just think about that if you and I were to go do something new, go to a new city neither of us have been to, neither one of us would be an expert on it, neither one of us would have sensed it before.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: But when we do it together it would be all.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: It'd be kind of creating that bond.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: And when you do that with your child, it could be travel, it could be learning a new sport, it could be learning a new sport, it could be learning a new recipe, it could be I mean, who knows what it could be?
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: There's so many options.
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: It could be learning to collect coins and stamps together, because that's something that you both kind of had an inkling of.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: Often it comes when your child starts to become of age to do things independently and it's like, hey, let's go do that together and it removes that parent being in charge and you're learning together.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: And what's really neat is often the child learns faster than the parent, and I know that happened with me.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: When I learned kiteboarding with my son, it was great because he quickly became my coach, even though we started together.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: But we would plan trips together, we would think about together, and when I learned backcountry ski touring with my other son and went to the avalanche training courses when he was 13, we learned it together.
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: We'd share the notes, um, and he's a better student than I am, so he'd always have a little bit more information than I did but learning together.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: I do want to put like if you were to write something down like this is one of the most powerful things you can possibly do, because it typically opens up a whole new relationship and connection.
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: That is beyond even having your child follow you down one of your pursuits, which is also super cool.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: I mean that's amazing, but it's really powerful to do something new.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: So that's that middle part of the pyramid, and then we can talk later about the top part, which is the breakthrough moments, where things really unfold and you talk and learn about things.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: Well, I'll just I'll cover it now.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: It's breakthrough moments are really hard to schedule, but they are.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: It's after you've done these side-by-side activities.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: I'm an outdoors person, so I'm going to use that as an analogy, but please don't take away it's what we do.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: This could literally be cooking, it could be reading, it could be collecting, it could be anything, but we're outdoors people.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: So typically our breakthrough moments come when we're hiking on the trail or we're cycling, and it's after hour two, after hour three, or maybe you have four more hours to go and a topic comes up and you've got this time together, you're next to each other and you just can cover it in depth.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: That is not possible.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: An example I'll give is I was doing a long bike ride with my son and he turned to me.
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: We had like six hours to go and he turned to me and said hey, tell me about what it was like to grow up.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: What did go on in your household, you know?
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Why is it so?
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: Why is your relationship, you know, challenged with your dad?
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: It so?
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: Why is your relationship challenged with your dad?
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: And so and we had so many hours left that we had this breakthrough conversations I shared with him things I'd never shared with others.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: And anyway, getting yourself into a moment like that is great.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: I'll give you some verbatims from the research on people like this.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: One was oh, we were out in a boat, we lost the anchor, we were kind of adrift for two hours and I had the best conversation I've ever had with my dad.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: And it's like that's a breakthrough moment.
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: You couldn't have planned it.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: You're already out there together.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: You're connecting in a whole different way.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: Or this woman said oh, I was building some furniture for my boyfriend with my dad and we just had night after night in the garage working on this and we got into topics I never thought we'd get into.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: Well again, you can't plan it for three o'clock on Friday in a conference room, but when you're kind of together and you're working in both those examples, both of those were just these side by side moments you can start opening up and getting into these more, these deeper conversations and deeper connections.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: How, as you, as you reflect, I guess I'm going to, I'm going to.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: I'm going to break one of my rules that I teach Todd, which is don't ask two questions in one, but I kind of have to here so I apologize.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: So hang with me.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: So I would love to know of that journey for you.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Tell me the.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: Was it easy?
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Actually, I'm going to ask one question Tell me, was it easy or hard to have that breakthrough moment?
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: And maybe is there?
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Did it take some time or is it quicker for you?
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: I'm really lucky.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: I've had a ton of these and they came pretty naturally because of some some of the things we talked about.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: I'll give you an example and I'm going to tie a couple of my points together.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: So I'm going to open with one of our the delicate topics, which is I usually I, when I first gave this talk, I titled it parenting is not about going to your kid's soccer game and that sparked a lot of people Like what do you mean?
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: You don't love sports.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: Actually, I do love sports, but what I was trying to say is you're not really connecting with your kids.
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: While you're watching them play soccer, you're talking with the parents on the sideline and you're dropping them off, picking them up and you're kind of watching them perform.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: So I was trying to point out that if you have time to spend with your kid, your child, think about it, about maybe mixing it up with some other things.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: So that's what I did with my son.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: I have one son who's a crazy athlete.
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: He did every sport, literally every sport possible, usually two sports a season and I finally went to him and I said you know, you've got soccer games on Saturday and on Sunday.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: Do you mind if I just don't go to your games on Sunday and I'm going to mountain bike with the other son too.
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: This is when the boys were like 10 and 13.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: And so on those Sundays, every morning, every Sunday morning, taylor and I the older one would go mountain biking up these trails into the hills behind our house, and it was usually about a three hour outing and we would just.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: That was the download it was.
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: It was amazing, and so I feel like early on we started to have those moments and we're still continuing that today.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: But it did require being in that setting.
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: It wouldn't have happened if we were at the dinner table Right With all the typical parenting anxiety going on, but it was happening because we're outdoors.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: We were riding side by side, we had plenty of time, no distractions, just enjoying something together, and again, that could just as easily be cooking or something else.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: It doesn't have to be some outdoor activity, although I will say in the research, most of the memories were outdoor related, which makes sense.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: Right, you don't have the TV, you don't have as many distractions.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: It does make sense.
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: You don't have the TV, you don't have as many distractions.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: It does make sense, but it doesn't have to be.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: So to answer your question, I feel pretty good about it.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: But of course there are lots of times, and even to this day, where we'd love to bring up topics and it's hard to bring up and you're waiting for that moment.
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: And we've kind of learned to wait for that moment to see if it'll come up.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: How long do you wait for a parent who's maybe and I'm asking this because I'm sure there's a parent that's listening or watching that says this sounds great, guys, but I've tried everything and I cannot get my kid to open up.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: I can't get them to talk, I can't.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: So how can we give them like inspiration or encouragement to keep trying to stay patient?
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: So it's hard to know this, the specific examples.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: But typically what I've seen from people who've heard the talk and whatnot and then gotten back to me is it usually comes to just the approach you're taking and turning it around a little bit, turning it upside down a bit Like, hey, what would you like really being sensitive to where their interests might be or where you might be pressuring and just working into a different type of environment and empathy with them and getting more on their terms?
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: I'll give you an example we discussed the other day where a friend came to me and said oh, I connect with my son.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: We do football and basketball games.
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: I love it, but I don't don't have any overlap with my daughter.
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: I said, well, what is she into?
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: And he said yo, that's the issue.
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: She's a dancer.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: Ballet is just not for me.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: I said, well, if you have that attitude, you'll never connect with her.
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: But why don't you go see one of these with her and ask her which show she wants to see?
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: And they did it.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: And he came away with two things.
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: One had a great time with his daughter and connected, but he was blown away by the ballet.
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: In other words, just opening up the mind a little bit and turning it more into their perspective, I think you can gain a lot of connection, and then allowing it to happen from there goes a long ways.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: I think life in general.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: If you're willing to listen and be more sensitive to what the other person is going through or thinking, you're more likely to be able to have that discussion.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's an old.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know who said this, but I should probably know who I'm quoting.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: I definitely don't take credit for it, but someone said be interested, not interesting.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree with that completely.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: It's like when you can shameless plug here.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: But in the book I wrote in my mind I wrote it for salespeople but as it's evolved over four or five years it's actually more of like a life book, which I was never the goal, but it's kind of happening.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: And the power of the difference between hearing and listening.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Hearing is subconscious, listening is conscious.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: It means put my phone down.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: It means look at my daughter's on the eye.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: It means put my phone down.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: It means look at my daughter or son in the eye.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: It means asking a couple of follow-up questions.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: You know having patience for people Like and even like the examples you share about.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: You know, whether it's outdoors or the ballet or cooking, mom or dad, we might need to check our ego and not go golf that weekend.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is really important.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: Oh, you got to create.
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's proactive effort here of creating windows.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: There's proactive effort here of creating windows.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and to be clear, it's.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: I want to be super clear.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: I am a I'm not a parenting expert and not everything's perfect.
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: Okay, there's no easy path.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: This is all.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: I want to be super clear on that.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: I'm more just trying to take this learning and share it with other people what I've heard from the, from the young adults, and so what they remember and what was special to them, and share it with others.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: And it was these types of experiences that I heard over and over and over again as to what was special, Interestingly, in the multiple choice questions, whereas force ranks, you know 20 different activities.
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: I don't even remember, but literally list.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: You know cooking, board games, watching your parent, watching you play sports.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: You know all these things.
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: What's interesting is the things that we probably spend the most time on were at the bottom of the list as far as what the kids valued, including and I think everyone should go watch their kids play sports, but including that, they found it stressful and I think it's more about how you do it.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: And then, just on this topic, I want to just make sure we complete it.
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: It's more about is that the only so many parents are kind of checking the box.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: Like I did the soccer game, we did the soccer weekend, we went to all the tournaments.
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: Much time did you put into that?
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: How much time did you actually spend with your child?
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: And can you take your time and move a little bit more about where you're connecting more on a side-by-side basis, Because you might've just spent a little?
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: I have friends who just told me about their weekend.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: They spent two full days transporting their child around to soccer games, watching them, and you think about well, what if you took a little bit of that and took two hours and went off and did something together where you might connect more?
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: So it takes some proactive effort to put yourself in this situation.
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: When we talked, and you said it yesterday or two days ago when we talked.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: Today there's a memory that my daughter shared with me of one of the funniest memories that I thought was funny, but I don't really remember like she did and it now reflect in my mind that I thought you might find humorous is like we've had a lot of sports memories, but one of her favorite memories is as we were in Hawaii and I thought it would be funny to try to do donuts in a minivan.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: Um, like the, and, and my wife's getting mad at me, slow down, and the kids are literally laughing out of control and I'm like this is a bad idea.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: And then we're like, and like it's like a random Hawaiian on the big Island parking lot that no one's around.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: All of a sudden, this car comes on.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: Well, that kind of looks like a cop car.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: I'm like he comes up.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: He's like sorry, everything, okay, what's going on?
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: Just, uh, really, if I'm being honest, we're trying to do donuts in a minivan and I thought it might be funny for my kids, and he's like uh, yeah, I don't, and my wife gave me so much shit, sorry, a little swearing at everybody, but and so much, and my and my kids.
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: That was hilarious but it's like so random but yet they remember that stuff, you know well, you know I told you we talked to these 1200 people and we had open-ended question and answers and, surprisingly, a lot of the answers on your best memories with your parents did have some adversity in it.
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: I think there's this one of we were on a camping trip.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: Our camper broke down and we spent three hours waiting to get picked up and that's when I had the best conversation with my mom in our life.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: They were sitting in the back of the camper while, I think, the dad and the child went off.
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: The dad and the son went off to get some help.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: So there's often it's okay Again, that's just creating those opportunities to connect.
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: And, by the way, that sparks another thought.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: Another key learning was one-on-one time.
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: It definitely came out in the feedback from the kids.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: Like you know, I love my sister, but she just overwhelms every conversation.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: I love my brother.
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: You know can interchange and I just want to be just.
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: Our one-on-one time is my best memory because they want to have their connection versus having to figure out the interplay between the two parents or figure out the interplay between all the kids and the parents and it's awesome to be all together too, but sometimes the really special memories is being willing to go away with one child and do something that's special for each other and build that connection.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Hi, this is Kathy Orton.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: I'm the Director of Talent Management at CoWorks Staffing Services.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Coworks is one of the largest staffing firms in the United States, with operations in all 50 states, over 60,000 temporary field talent.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: We are devoted to the success and growth of our employees and our clients.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: We are celebrating our 50th anniversary this year and are proud to have a legacy of treating people the right way, doing the right thing, supporting our communities and putting field talent first.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Our team places candidates in administrative light, industrial, call center, distribution, third-party logistic positions with additional opportunities through our executive search, creative staffing and luxury, beauty and fragrance divisions.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: We had the pleasure of having Casey Jaycox deliver a keynote presentation and training workshop to our sales team this year and I have to tell you it was exceptional.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Casey is funny, he is engaging and he is approachable.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: What sets Casey apart is that he really walks the walk.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: He lives what he teaches.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: He spent time with us outside of the workshop, really taking the time to get to know our people.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: He shared information about his personal life, about his family, creating the foundation for authentic relationships, one of the core elements of the strategy he teaches.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Casey left our teams feeling motivated, energized and armed with the actionable tools to transform their sales performance.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: I cannot recommend Casey enough to any or any organization looking to grow and unlock their full potential.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about co-work staffing, please visit our website at co-workstaffingcom.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Now let's get back to the podcast.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've had a lot of dads I've interviewed, they've talked about that and I've made it a priority I think we shared the other day.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: I have a son that's in college now, so I went through the first flying the coop, which was way harder than I ever thought, and he's my golf buddy, my sports buddy, and so you know I don't get that, but my, you know, my one-on-one time that I get to do with my daughter.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: She loves the game of basketball more than anything and so, like rebounding is like our time to talk and I get a, you know, uninterrupted 35, 40 minutes of just asking questions and without judgment and because she's like her hardest critic on herself.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: But as you're going through, I made some notes.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: Like you know, she loves to cook and loves to bake.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Well, I've never asked her hey, you want to take a cooking class together?
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: There you go, you know.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: So maybe that's my homework out of this conversation and I I also want to say too, todd, like you said, a second I want to revisit what you said.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: Like everybody, I'm not a perfect dad either.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: I'm not a parenting expert and I know I've said this before.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: I get free therapy out of every episode.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: I get to work on myself and every dad I get to talk to.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: So, like Todd, this is just a platform to create space for these types of conversations.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: If you choose to listen, if you choose to share them with other people, I feel like we're on a shared mission.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: I didn't mean to do it, but I feel like I'm on a shared mission.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: Mission just to create better fathers, better family lives, better positive environments where you know, when you break the huddle as a quarterback, it's with energy, it's purpose, we got excitement, we we're gonna go do something fun together and um that you know, even though my my days of playing quarterback there's uncle rico moment.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: It's air over I still get to play court.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: That's a quarterback of life.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know it.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: You talked about the talk.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Is there a way someone we can like learn about the talk?
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Can we see it someplace?
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: yeah, unfortunately I.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: It's a regret have I haven't recorded it in a way that can be shared.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: And I should do that.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: Well, that's the tease, everybody.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: Um, do you ever do this like other conferences, or is just?
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: well, it's interesting, it was gaining some momentum before COVID and then when COVID happened, it just kind of you know, I nobody was meeting and doing things like that.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: So I I've got to figure out what to do with it now.
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: If I had the, if I would love to write, I would put together I'm not a big fan of these big thick books I'd put together a 20 page version on what I've learned so that people could everybody could absorb it and maybe do a YouTube talk.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: But I've got to figure out where to take it from here.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Well, maybe it's serendipity that don introduced us.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: You know, you never know what, what the power of connection will happen if you stay curious and, um, I guess, as we as we think, um, as we think about, like your, your journey you grew up, you talk about, and then you've had this, this pyramid you've created, which I, I can have it in front of me with all that experience and and like, if there's maybe a younger dad listening that maybe we're taking all he's, he's taking a lot out of now.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: But if we had to like maybe summarize and a few, you know, two or three things for them to be thinking about that they can, they can say, hey, I want to learn from these two guys.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: I don't want to make the same mistakes, but I want to be the best dad I can possible, like, how would you describe two or three things they can be thinking about?
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: To kind of simplify or take away from our conversation today, yeah.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: So I do want to just clarify again I'm more focused on the memory, creating special memories, because there's a lot to parenting and being a good father than, besides, just the memory piece.
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: But I think everybody's dream is to get to the memory, is to get to those great experiences.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: So I can provide some insight on that.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: I'd say one is be thoughtful about time you spend.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: We don't have unlimited time.
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: We all have the same amount of time, but we don't have unlimited time and therefore, between work and the different things we have to do, think about how you do spend your time with your family and your kids and proactively think about it.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: How much am I in that processing time, how much am I in that side-by-side time and I encourage people like, literally in the next hour, you could just think about that.
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: All of us can think about how we're spending our time.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: And then the next step would be okay, can I move a block?
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: Like talk with my spouse or partner, like I'll take two.
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: I'll take the two kids on Saturday, but could I have one of them on Sunday?
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: Just, you know, do some trading and, and you know, proactively, do something that's a little different and think about just, we both need this side-by-side time.
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: Don't be fully always in that processing bucket, in the supervisor role, if you will.
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: That parental relationship, you know, vertical relationship we talked about before.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: So I think that that is as far as creating memories and being proactive about that or, you know, getting a higher probability of getting there.
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: I think you have to be somewhat deliberate about how you spend time with your kids and it is not just about going to their stuff.
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: So that's one of my key things.
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: People bristle when I talk about it, but we spend so much time going to their stuff and not enough time actually looking at them and watching, watching them perform, basically, and not enough time just with them as themselves and hearing thoughts, sharing thoughts, sharing challenges, working through stuff.
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's why I'm a huge fan of like this camping scene and that's what came back in the research is like you're working through a lot of stuff together.
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: When you're out in the outdoors, um, and working through those things, or cooking, you know you're putting together the ingredients, whatever.
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: I keep using those examples.
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: So that would be my main advice is really think about how you spend time and consciously trying to move into that side-by-side time.
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: And then, third, be aware and sensitive to your child's interests.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: I think we are all kind of wired to some degree.
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: You know our goal.
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: One of our requirements as a parent is to expose our kids to lots of stuff, right?
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: I think we all do it, so I hope we do, and sometimes we force kids down certain paths of our own.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: But that might not be where they're comfortable and I think, as a parent, to be sensitive to where they are, get psyched and where they're getting motivated and following that is super important to that relationship and creating those memories together.
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: So an example could be uh, let's just use some cliches I'm going to use.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: I'm going to pick on you here.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: Not pick on you, but you're a quarterback.
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: You could have forced your kid, your son you have an older son into being a quarterback.
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: That could have it, and imagine how rewarding that would be if it had happened.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: But there probably would have been a tremendous amount of stress there.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: I don't know, maybe he went down this path, by the way, but it sounds like he's pursuing something very different than that today, that you're really fired up on right, but imagine the stress of pushing someone down a path that they're not genuinely interested in that they're not, it's not their inner drive.
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: But turn it around to the positive.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: Let's say you see that light bulb go off.
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: You know in your case it was golf, it could have been computer programming, it could have been theater.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: You see that let's use singing.
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: You see that light bulb go off and you like, as a parent, some wiring they have and embrace it and support it, because that's our goal is to support our friends and our family and what they're interested in and not force them down a path they might not really want to do.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: So, those would be my two tips.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: I mean it's such what I love about the advice or what you're speaking.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: Those would be my two tips.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, dad, like, am I meeting my child where they are?
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: Am I doing everything I can to find something they want to do?
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: Or maybe I'm still mad that I didn't make the high school team and I'm making sure that my son or daughter makes the high school team and has better points per game than I ever did and throws more interceptions or touchdowns, like I mean.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: I remember to your point I, my son, did play a little bit of quarterback growing up in flag football.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: Um never pushed me to play tackle football.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: He also had was like a pretty good receiver.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: He liked receiver and I was like dude, just go out.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: We're going to like the goal is great effort, red face at the end Cause you worked your ass off.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: That's the goal.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: And I'm so glad he didn't choose to play quarterback or football because it wouldn't have been my passion, it would have been his passion.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: Now he loves sports, loves the game of football, but I think he saw dad's body breaking down a little bit in late 30s, early 40s and back issues.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: He's like I don't know if I want that I actually think this topic it's interesting.
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: We've never I've never talked about it out on a recorded set up like that.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: But this topic of how to expose your family, your kids, to different things, and then what level of encouragement and support, is one of the hardest, most difficult things to figure out.
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: Because if you do look at a lot of successful people quote successful who knows if they actually are happy?
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: They had a lot of support and a lot of drive often behind them, but then you see a lot of very unhappy people who had a lot of parent drive pushing them down places that they didn't want to go.
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: So it's really this fascinating thing of like, wow, how much do I kind of nudge here, and I think that's a delicate balance of.
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: Again I come back to our role is to expose, be aware and then support.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: At least that's where we came out and I'm really happy with that.
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: And so because if you push too hard, I have a son who's an athlete and he is in a sport that we weren't tuned into and didn't know much about and he said this was it was, this is my thing.
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: He was like this is my sport and I I did it because I love it and I think that's awesome, I mean, and we try to get behind it and support him as much as we could, but it was all new to us and that was.
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: But he keeps coming up because I always say, had more.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: You know, I was sometimes talking to him like it would have been better if you'd had more support from not support, but drive like push from home.
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: He's like no, no, I'm, I want to be in charge here.
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: This is my thing.
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: So it's kind of interesting what that balance should be.
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: I don't, I don't have the right answer for it.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: It's different in every kid.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: Well, you triggered another thought.
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: So and I funny I talked to this gentleman yesterday.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: I haven't, you know it's it's the shout out Matt Miller for listening.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: So it's Matt Miller's, a buddy I met through a short consulting thing early in my entrepreneurial journey and he's and then I had him on the podcast and his it's funny his wife came down the stairs when you're interviewing.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: She's like who is that?
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: How did he get you to talk about all that stuff?
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: And we kind of joke about it.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: But he's such a good dude and he's such a great guy.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: He's a former principal educator, turned like kind of business leadership consultant and super humble guy.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: But one of the biggest things I took from him that I've shared with other dads and you're making me think about it, cause it's like that delicate balance how do you know if you're are you pushing too much, too little?
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: But his question he said he would say is hey, tell me how I can be a better dad this week, tell me what's one thing I can do to be a better husband this week, like open-ended question.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: But if you generally want to care, and then maybe they'll say nothing dad, you're awesome.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: No, no, one's awesome, we're all.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: We all got gaps.
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: Give me one thing Am I?
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: Am I too hard on you in the car?
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: Do you want me to do?
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: Not want me to rebound for you?
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: Um, do you not want to ask about your schoolwork?
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: like, tell me what's one thing I could do and just that's great you know, so maybe, maybe a mix of what you're saying, todd, then some sprinkle, some matt miller wisdom and if we're, if we're trying to figure out, are we pushing not enough?
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: I think the only way to do it is like, I think, the genuine curiosity your child has to feel it if you want to open up.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: Somehow having the sensitivity to what they're really motivated by and enabling them to pursue.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: That seems like one of our absolute most important things we can do as a parent, and I think a lot of parents regret the amount of stress they introduce into the relationship around pushing in certain categories.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: Go to this school, get these grades, go to that college.
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: You know there's a lot of pressure out there.
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: So, be on this traveling team, whatever you know.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: Make that be on the cheer squad, whatever.
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of pressure in our community and from the parents, so somehow letting them kind of come out and blossom on their own um is key, love it.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: Well, um, if I don't know if you're, if you're a social media guy, but people have been intrigued by our conversation, like, oh my God, I want to.
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: I want to connect with this.
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: I want to connect with Todd, I want to follow him.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: Is there a place that I can send people to learn more about you or what you're, what you're doing professionally, or what you're or we're going to take this?
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I used to be more active on social media, but I've been trying to really trim it down because it can consume so much time.
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: But I do.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: I am on Instagram, so I usually post about some of our family activities there, and that's a good place to connect.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'll make sure that is linked.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: I don't ever end with gratitude because I'm going to take into the lightning round, which is, um, a fun little thing, but I I am grateful.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: I literally got distracted.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: I'm seeing you, but I see this like glow on my left side, and so it's how.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: We live on the bottom of about an 800 foot hill by ourselves oh okay, and my daughter and her teammate from high school basketball team.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: They're running our hill.
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: Amazing, I'm like what?
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: There's no one chasing them.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: They're just running.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: I'm like that is awesome.
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: That's amazing.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: I cannot believe it.
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: I did not have that drive to running hills like this, that's amazing, but anyway, sorry, that's what you got to go with that drive to running hills like this and junior, but anyway, sorry, that's what you gotta go with.
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: Hey, I'm gonna finish with things I often get asked about or do finish talks with, and that's what do I do next?
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: What can I do about this?
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: love it and so I'm gonna throw out three ideas.
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: What in the next three hours or right now?
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: Think about how, how do I spend my time with my child, like and it's be super honest with yourself Just how am I spending it?
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: And if you see some things in there where maybe you're like heavily overweighted, and then there's some other areas where it's like, well, you know they love that, but we don't put enough time into it, think about proactively moving some time slots around.
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: So I'm not saying, oh, you have to spend more time with your kids.
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: I'm saying take the time you have and look at how you're spending it and see if you get more into that side-by-side time.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: Second, here's something you can look at what am I doing this weekend?
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: Like literally trade a carpool with your spouse, skip a game and go for the walk with the other child, go for a train ride with the other child, whatever.
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: Think about ways that you can reallocate your time.
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: Okay, in the next three weeks.
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: Think about new activities and new interests, just like proactively.
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: Think, gosh, what would be fun to follow their passion, what would be some things I'd love to share with them.
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: Maybe you go back.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: There's so many things.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: You can go here and then, longer term here's the one Think about learning something new together.
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: It literally will be breakthrough for everybody Learning something if you truly let the process go naturally, versus a parent needing to be the expert.
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: I think that's the key to learning something new.
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: At the core is actually that you're both fresh, both vulnerable yeah, and you learn something new together.
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: Get away from that daily processing and things are going to happen.
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: It's just I know it's happened for me.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: I can't guarantee it every time we go do something, but those moments when it does, it's amazing.
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: I've heard back from so many people.
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: Think about those things, just how you connect.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: So I'm still quite active on LinkedIn, todd, and this is like to me, like just screaming what a great post to get people engaged.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: And so if I would say I'd love to like hey, I'm lucky enough like highlight Don, highlight you and we had this fantastic conversation.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: It's going to come out next month.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: Everybody but like and ask those questions and get people thinking Like who does not want great outcomes for all those four questions?
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: Actually you mentioned LinkedIn.
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: Linkedin might be a more accessible platform of connecting, so I'd be happy to connect with people that way.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: Well, I it's this.
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: 55 minutes flew by, um.
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: I'm grateful that Don trusted me to connect with you.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: I'm grateful for a couple hours we've spent together.
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: Uh, hopefully our paths will cross where I can shake your hand and meet you in person.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: But before I let you go, it's now time to go into the lightning round where this is where I go random.
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: I show the negative hits of too many hits in college not bong hits, Todd, but football hits and your job is to answer these questions as quickly as you can.
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: These are not prescriptive.
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: These are just going to show you how random I am and my goal is to get a giggle out of you.
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: All right, let's go.
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, Are you ready?
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: Okay, I don't know what's happening here, but let's go Both those giggles don't know what's happening here.
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: But let's go.
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: Both those giggles don't count, okay, true or false.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: Growing up in Indiana, you taught Larry Bird how to shoot three pointers.
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: I did not.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: Okay, true or false, you won the America's Cup with your mom when you used to sail False, false.
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: Okay, in my mind.
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: There you go, tell me the last book you read.
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: Hang on, I'm processing a bunch of books right now, actually the very last book is the Peter Attia book about longevity.
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: Okay, longevity, I'm a big reader, so I'm going to write that down.
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: If I was to come to your house for dinner tonight.
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: The name is actually Outperform, but it's about longevity Outperform.
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, if I was to come to your house for dinner tonight.
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: tell me, what would we have?
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: Well, we'd probably.
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: This is a rare night we're actually going out, but if you were coming over to our house, we would probably be grilling outside, and it's usually going to be salmon or something like that, and just super casual.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: Do you ever go butter and brown sugar on your salmon?
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, we put a lot on the salmon, ginger, brown sugar syrup, everything it's like.
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: All pesto Love it.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: I'm getting hungry, it's like candy.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: If you were to go on a vacation right now, you and Bonnie no kids, I know the kids want to go, but just you and Bonnie, tell me where we're going.
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we're probably going wing foiling in some warm South Pacific spot that has wind and waves.
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: Wow, that sounds fun.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: If there was to be a book written about your life, tell me the title Maximizing Maximize Okay Now, believe it or not, todd every airport.
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: This thing is just going selling like hotcakes.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: No one can keep it in.
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: It's flying off the shelves.
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: Everybody wants to read it.
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: Amazon can't print enough copies because they want to.
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: So many people want to read it.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: And so now Hollywood's found out about it and they're making a movie.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: You have been deemed the casting director and I need to know who's going to star you in this critically acclaimed, hit new movie maximizing.
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I have no idea you gotta pick one.
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: I mean I told you look like a mix of greg norman and mark cuban oh gosh, I literally have no idea where to go with this how about?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: How about, uh, uh, what's his name?
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: The guy in my shoot the wedding?
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: One Funny guy, steve Martin.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: I'm not that funny.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: No, I'd go with somebody.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: So if it were a dream scenario, it would be about adventure, it would be about outdoor exploring, it would be adventuring and all that stuff.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: So I'll pick Tom Cruise.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: Nice, mission impossible.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: Big outings.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, somebody who's great, nice, mission impossible.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: Big outings.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, jumping, yeah, yeah Planes Going down hills, you know, on the water sailing, all that stuff.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: And then last question Tell me two words that would describe your wife Very smart.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: Boom, lightning round's over.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: We both, we both giggled.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: It's a good answer too.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: It's a good answer.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: Sometimes dad tried to hyphenate like seven words together and I usually let him.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: Let him do it, but, um, thank you.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: Thank you for your time, thanks for everybody who's listened, who's taken notes.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: Um, this might be an episode you might want to listen to twice If you miss.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: I've.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: I've talked to Todd now twice and I have two pages of notes and there's so many actionable things you can take today to be that ultimate quarterback or leader of your home, to look yourself in the mirror and figure out ways to be better.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: And I want to say thank our sponsors, thank everybody who continues to listen.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: But, todd, I'm grateful for your time and I'm grateful for our paths across and I wish you nothing but the best in the future.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: Well, thanks for doing this and sharing wisdom with other parents.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: It's awesome, awesome.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: All right, man, take it easy, good Thanks.