Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 245 | The Tension Between Providing and Being Present

Transcript

Ep. 245 | The Tension Between Providing and Being Present · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:04
  What's up, guys? Welcome to another 5-Minute Fatherhood. Our setup here, if you're watching on YouTube, is a little different. It's awesome, though. In the same room. We're in the room where it happened. Hamilton reference right there. But we're excited. Yeah, the next six, seven episodes will be like this. Yeah, so usually people can't even tell if we're in the same room, but typically in these, I'm in Cincinnati, Jeff's in Mallory. Yeah, we're 5,000 miles away. So it looks a little like we're, but we're actually now, we're not, this is not special effects. This is you.
• 0:28
  CGI. That's CGI. Jeff just flew into Cincinnati this morning. They're having an awesome time coming up from Savannah. So we want to talk to you guys about a topic that is really important for especially young dads. Ken, in our Facebook group, he talked about the tension between providing and being present. And I like the way that he describes this. He says,
• 0:48
  between working harder to bring in more money to set up your multi-generational team, long-term business planning, maybe starting a family business, et cetera, versus the exhaustion that it takes to do that, which will naturally wear on you as you take away the energy to be an intentional husband, father, et cetera. For instance, I can work harder, maybe pick up a second source of income, but I always find that when I do, I'm so exhausted. I just want to sleep when I get home. That's not being a father. Oh, man, yeah, I don't know how this...
• 1:17
  Yeah, no, I mean, it was funny. We were talking about this even last week. I was telling you, I think my way that I struggle with it is similar but different in that, but maybe the answers are the same. It was Ken, right? Yeah, Ken. Is for me, I wrestle with how much do I want to try to build systems and...
• 1:32
  passive income at some level, but just also like certain circumstances so that I can be with the family and how versus how much do I want to take that the family, not that like that one, as if there's other ones that the family on mission with me in the work. That's a tough tension I wrestle with, right? Yeah.
• 1:48
  Um, because at some level, if you're doing too much of like, Oh, just create all these streams of income and passive route generate, you know, generating income, et cetera. Then like what I think sometimes people don't realize in that lifestyle is then that creates almost a missionless home. You're just kind of like, Oh, I'm just home hanging. Cause you're almost like doing that pseudo American retirement thing. You know, I'm just like, we're just home. Like we don't do anything. Um, so I think that that balance is interesting. One thing I've tried to do is. Um.
• 2:10
  It doesn't need to be one forever. And so I've tried to say, like, what does this season need? That's right. Does this season need me at home more? Well, then I want to try to create some things that can run on their own, right? Does this season need our kids called up to something? And this is something I try to pay attention to when the kids are being a little selfish, a little entitled, a little... To me, I feel like a lot of times, not always...
• 2:30
  those traits of a heart are usually coming out when you're missionless or purposeless. You know what I mean? So that's what I've realized is like, man, I usually notice that in the kids when we're just subtly getting drawn into a insider insular consumer perspective. Right. So that's how I've kind of wrestled with it, which is different than Ken, because it's a little different question. But how would you say that?
• 2:51
  Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important to think about these in terms of seasons of intensity, seasons of presence. I think that you have to have a long-term perspective on what are you trying to build and at what point is that presence most critical. In my opinion, you will not hear this, I think, in most sort of family ministries. I think presence gets increasingly more important the older you get.
• 3:12
  Yes. You have more kids to get older. Well, the kids get too. That's right. So even when your kids are in your 20s, nobody talks about, okay, I want to be super present for my kids in their 20s and 30s. Yeah. I think that's absolutely critical. And so oftentimes, if it does take a sacrifice in my 20s and 30s to get to that point, that's a trade-off. There's obviously a huge balance here, but I really consider making that trade-off. Now, in the state of, like what Ken described, the exhaustion, the need to be present, that's not a father.
• 3:42
  What I always look at is
• 3:44
  in whatever that, if you're in a very intense work season, maybe you're working 60 hours a week, if you pick up a second income, then is there any way your kids can be integrated into that second, man, that's a game changer. Because then it's a win-win. That's right, so for a lot of guys who, maybe they're sales jobs and they have to travel, can I bring one of my kids with me? Even when they're six or seven, I've got a lot of friends who've tried this, I've done this a lot. It's really, a lot of people don't think outside the box that way.
• 4:12
  I want to be a father everywhere I go. And so the tools that I use is definitely integrating my kids more into my work, finding opportunities to do that. If I'm going to pick up a second source of income, almost a condition of the second source of income is I've got to be with my wife or my kids at some level. Or it's just not worth it. 60 hours a week away from the family, even in...
• 4:35
  in that really early stage, I think at some point, especially if you're coming home exhausted, you can't sustain that for years. That's just not realistic. Yeah. And so I would agree with that. Ken, let us know if that served you and encouraged you. But literally, this question came, or where I started asking this question, was it integrated a couple weeks ago. So yeah, tell Ken about and the rest of the audience about integrated. Yeah. So if you guys, Jeff and I started a business owners masterminds. Which is perfect for these questions. That's right. And this is exactly what we're trying to talk through.
• 5:01
  How do we help guys who are trying to figure this out, build assets, integrate their family, become creative? We get together twice a year. You can find that at familyteams.com slash integrated. We just got back from Austin with the guys. So good. It was awesome. We're going to do Cincinnati. Is that a house phone? Do you guys have a house phone? We have a grandma who lives here. Do you guys have a house phone?
• 5:20
  Five-Minute Fatherhood, you guys just got a special treat. A house phone just rang. I haven't heard one of those since 2009. That's right. But that was amazing. But you should join Integrate. You know, when Grandma moves in, she needs a house phone. We've discovered that. Landlines. There's a generation where they just cannot be sacrificed. So we will turn that off. And go to the next episode. But if you guys want to think you just got time warped into the 80s, that was fun.