[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Daddy yo podcast. I'm your host Rob Burnett, and along with my co host, Brad Bickerton, we're exploring modern fatherhood and how it blends with business leadership. Both Brad and I are new fathers and we both run businesses. On this podcast, you'll hear about our parenting journeys as well as from parenting experts, CEO's and other business leaders. We're going to dive deep on being dads, business lessons and the balance of work and fatherhood. We hope you'll join us on this journey. Please enjoy the show.
Hey, everyone, welcome to the show. I'm your host Rob Burnett.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: And with me, as always, I'm Brad Bickerton.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: On today's episode, we're going to talk about the four agreements. We're going to talk about the four month sleep regression and then stay tuned. We've got an interview with Dennis McMahon. Dennis is the CEO of high five marketing. Its a branding and marketing studio that works with high end brands. And his wife just started an alternative schooling program where he lives. Brads known Dennis for ten years and always says the same thing. Hed be making millions if he lived in LA or New York, but he chose to live happily in the mountains of Colorado instead. So youre definitely going to want to hear this interview, but Brad, lets kick us off. How are you doing? Hows theo? Hows life?
[00:01:18] Speaker B: We are in the grind.
Uh, so you have your sleep regression to talk about. We have his internal chrome on. Chromominator is off. He will wake up at 715 or 06:00 a.m. With no, no semblance about it. And I am just constantly losing that last bit of sleep cycle. So I can feel it behind my eyeballs that, that I'm tired. But he's happy. So we'll, we'll, we'll take that for the win. Thats pretty great. And then what I wanted to talk about this week, theres a book that I had you read and some people have had me read and I have a lot of my clients and now im giving it to a lot of the dads that I know as well. And its an interesting blend. Its called the four agreements. Its one of those perennial books. It must be 20 or 30 years old and it seems to kind of go around the horn every once in a while and people go, wow, this is amazing. I thought, well, if theres something that I think is amazing, maybe we talk about it here. And so very loosely, the four agreements, they're agreements you make with yourself that can help you live a better life. And it's not just self help. There's a lot of spiritualism in it. I'll get to some of that in a sec. But the four agreements are these. The first agreement to make is be impeccable with your word and in business and in fatherhood. What a massive thing to do. Don't say you'll do something unless you intend to do it. And if you say you're going to do it and you intend to do it, make sure you do it. And that's huge. The second agreement, and this is the one that's really hard for people, is don't make assumptions.
And that's hard because you want to make assumptions. Our brains skip to answers that we favor, and not making assumptions is actually a process of stopping and pausing. And the assumption, and this goes back to something Rob, you talked about in the pot earlier, is when a baby's crying, don't rush to pick them up. Don't assume that they're injured. Assume that they can only be helped by you. Give them a second, that pause. Or in business, of course, making assumptions is exactly where cognitive bias creeps in your mind and starts getting you on the wrong path and you don't see your way out of it.
The third one is, don't take it personally. And some people will talk about this, especially more on the buddhist side of it, is that the event itself is empty, or it was done without thinking about you anyway, positively or negatively. There is no malicious force. Don't take it personally. And I'll get to why that one started me reading the four week agreements again in a minute. But then the last one is, always do your best. And if you'd live your life and I just thinking about this, this, this thing that we're doing about fatherhood to become better at being fathers, what better framework could there be than being impeccable with your word, not making assumptions, always doing your best, and not taking it personally. Whoa.
That was a, that was an aha for me because I've been teaching this in leadership for. I read the book during lockdown, so for four years. And the super interesting thing is, the reason this came back up is there's a company that I've been working with for many years that they've got, they do have a malicious force. It is a person who we actually know has mental health issues and he can just slam them on Facebook all day, and he's going after ruining individuals reputations and he's not getting anywhere. From a legal perspective, from a business perspective, from a cash flow perspective. But he is absolutely decimating the leadership's joy, their team, their mission, their drive. And one of the things they were asking me for is like, Brad, what do we do other than just suffer? And so I had them read the four agreements and the one that I wanted them to get to but I didn't tell them, was that it's not personal.
This guy has made up an image of you in his mind that he doesn't like and that image actually doesn't represent you at all. It's a fake thing.
And so that was what I was brought up. And it looks like that pattern that started in October is now starting. This guy's starting to be put in the corner. He needs to be and maybe getting help.
But the team came back to me the other day and said, hey, Brad, we want to reevaluate the four agreements with the rest of our staff. How do we bring it forward? Because you brought it to us when we were in crisis, but now how do we bring it in? Hey, we're out of crisis. I don't want to get into that too much. I was just thinking about it as I'm not in crisis as a dad, but I'm tired. And really what I want to do when I'm tired is that I don't want to say like I want to hide, but I'm not putting as much in as I could. And then I looked at the four agreements, I'm like, well, you know, when you're dogging it as a dad, is that being impeccable with your word? Is that doing your best? And just those words clicked in my mind and I went, oh, all right, I gotta say it no other way. I gotta man up. I gotta, I gotta be the guy who does this and I gotta take it. And it ain't no fun. And that's fine. My job isn't to always have fun. My job is to provide, protect and be a calming force. And so that's the wisdom and lessons that I heard and learned this week about fatherhood and business.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Well, thanks for sharing, Brad. I think that's super wise and I think that makes me think a lot about, im actually reading one of the books from the author I mentioned last week, Nell Frazelle. And shes talking a lot about motherhood and about the kind of years before motherhood.
Its a fascinating topic about what she calls the panic years, the years in the late twenties, early thirties for most women when the biological reality conflicts with their desire to be free or pursue a career or not having found a partner yet. But all that's to say, she talks a lot about trying to normalize these feelings of being sad, tired, miserable, and let people know it's okay. Let people know when you have a small child, it's okay to be tired, to be sad. Whether that sadness creeps into, whether it's for a mom postpartum depression or for a dad depression or just good old fashioned. I'm tired. I'm sleep deprived. This kind of sucks. And I think there's a great movement towards getting those bad feelings out in the open, letting people talk about it, letting people commiserate in the suck of early parenting. And we're in the four month sleep regression. He's only three and a half months old, but we're already. He's already advanced for his.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: He's always ahead of the game. That Arthur, you paused on me.
I don't know where he went. My friend, can you hear me?
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I can see you.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: I got you now.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Your Internet connection is unstable, so it's my side. I just got the little note.
Don't know why I just picked. Yeah, uh, so pick it up. You were giving me permission to be a whiny bitch, I think, is what you were doing.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Yeah, well. Well, I want to. I want to give us permission, so if we cut out here. But as Brad said, I was giving him permission to be a whiny bitch. But also, um. And that is not a gender. That's bad. That's a gendered term. That's not where I want to go here, because it's not about moms whining and dad's not whining. Everyone's allowed to whine.
When I got cut off, I was shouting at my wife because she's the one taking the brunt of this four month sleep regression. She's waking up. She's exhausted, but she's also out right now. Shout out to her. Giving a presentation at a hospital about her research being a total boss, even though she's on maternity leave. So crushing it. She feels awesome. I'm so proud of her. But I think there's this weird thing that I've tried to. To.
It's a tightrope. I've tried to walk, which is both giving myself and the people around me, the other parents in my network, permission to be tired, to feel like it's miserable to want to, as some other people have said, throw your baby out the window or blah, blah, blah. Right. It's okay to feel that way. But also Brad, I like what you said, which is. But I should also be impeccable with my word. I shouldn't be phoning it. As a father. I think it's also okay to encourage each other to say, hey, it's time to use whatever term you want to use, but it's time to get your shit together and step up and be positive and get out the front door and do good work and be a good parent and do all those things that are exhausting and horrible and feel absolutely impossible in this moment of being a parent to a young child.
But also you've got, like, you know, I guess I'm here to say you've also got this, and it's also okay to push yourself, and it's okay to give yourself permission to have a pity party and then also give yourself permission to pick yourself up off the floor and go get to work again. And I think that. I don't know. I don't want to get into preach mode, but I think that we sometimes only try to do one or the other, which is you either repress it and say everything's okay, or go all the way towards it's okay to feel horrible, and by the way, just go wallow in it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, what I'm trying to do is take a moment to wallow in it, feel the misery in whatever form it takes, but then also try to move past it and go, okay, yeah, this sucks, but what am I going to do? Am I going to sit here and be a depressed fine line?
[00:10:59] Speaker B: It's tough, right?
And they're going to hit cycles. But what you're making me remember is during lockdown, the word resilience popped up everywhere, especially in coaches circles and everything, and it was overused. And of course, like every overused term ever, people changed the meaning of it to fit their need. But what resilience actually means is how quickly something bounces back. And it's just as much a manufacturing term as a human term.
And it's something that I work on a lot with the people that are working on it, and you're actually coaching me in this moment now is it's okay to be low if you've got a strong bounce back ability, and so you can't wallow it and you can't stay in it. But often you can't get out of the ditch unless you notice you're in the ditch. And so how long are you in the ditch without noticing is one part of resilience. So that would be the. The frequency and then the amplitude. How far down are you in the ditch? And how far do you have to get back up to normal and amplitude? So frequency and amplitude. And I know a lot of the CEO's that I've worked with, they used to. I can have one right now. He's got a 700 person company. He's like, one bad thing could set me on a loop for two weeks, he says, now one bad thing only sets me on a loop for one to two sleep cycles. I'm like, yeah. It's like, it's. We can't stop the cycling from happening from that gremlin that comes at you and just. This is the thing that nobody else knows. It's normal for everyone else, but you take it personally and hits you. Or that I have had wildly erratic sleep for three days in a row. Okay, that just happened.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: I'm not wallowing in it. Not exactly having a pity party. It was more. The other thing is, I was trying to be resilient by force feeding, doing it. And I needed the framework of, oh, yeah, I'm dragging butt for a reason. I see that now. I need to start bouncing back. And that's what the four agreements was giving me, was like, I need to be impeccable with my word. That's more important than ignoring what I have to do. I need to do my best. That is more important than ignoring what best even means. So, deep stuff.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: Yeah, deep stuff. Deep stuff for a Thursday morning. And I think that where this gets so hard and where I don't have any answers is that this time in our lives, especially just to call it out for the moms, is the line gets very fine between, you've got this, you're resilient.
Take some deep breaths. Go take a nap, and let's go. Let's do this together. Let's get this and things that are harder. Uh, postpartum depression is a real thing, and I'm not a clinician. I can't really speak to it, but there's no amount of resilience that's going to get you out of that funk. You need help.
And I. That's why I hesitated earlier, is I. I want to make sure people are clear that, like, I'm not trying to say that you should just pick yourself up by your bootstraps, but I'm saying give yourself. Give yourself permission to kick your own butt and help your partner or whoever, or the people in your life to remember that they are resilient and they can get through this and that. Sometimes it feels really good to start kicking butt and feel better later versus waiting to feel better to go start kicking butt.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Yeah. There's two ways to say it. This is the CS Lewis way to say it or the Al Pacino way to say it. Al Pacino playing the devil. In this case, the first one is if you're not feeling it, then just do it. And then eventually you'll start feeling it. And that's Cs Lewis talking about being a better man or better christian follower. And then Al Pacino playing the devil and the devil's advocate says, and then God said, fake it.
Yeah, it's interesting how often I can regress to use that word again into bachelor Brad mode where he was able to hide from these things. And that's another big part that I'm learning about fatherhood is like, you can't hide from it because baby needs help. And every time I'm not doing that, I am leaning on my partner more and she is doing plenty. So it's an interesting change in life.
And just a shout out to two of our listeners who talked to me about some of this stuff last week or this week, I guess after the Trevor Paul came out and said one of the things they loved about that interview is he was so intentional. And that that actually is what made his life livable. Even though there was all these problems and difficulties. He was intentional to live in Detroit. He was intentional to be a man of the people, to help out in public policy. He was intentional about all these things. And that's why he was intentional about leaving his work and going. And it just really meant a lot to me this week when I'm having a bit of a pity party that some people said, thank you for doing that interview. And that's what helped bounce me back as well. So, anyway, I'm all over the place, but thanks for listening, but let's flip the script a little bit.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: So, yeah, Rob, you've got some business stuff. You got some dad stuff here in the a block.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: What do you got to share?
Yeah. So I feel like, Brad, you're really bringing the emotional vulnerability these last couple of weeks, and I really appreciate it. I'm going to try to do the same. You've got some really great deep stuff to talk about. And I'm like, my kid's smiling, so I'm going to work on. I'm going to work on matching your energy.
But my kids smiling and it's awesome.
It's awesome. It's the best thing ever.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: They should model it.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: I tell you what we'd be I would quit this podcast and I'd retire if we could bottle whatever that is. So, yeah, I mentioned earlier we're going through what I believe to be the four month sleep progression, and that's pretty horrible. It's pretty miserable to get woken up a bunch.
But the beauty of it is that it's happening because Arthur's creating millions of connections in his brain and is waking up to the world even more. I feel like I've said that a couple times, that he's waking up and now it feels like he's really waking up. He's starting to understand that things he's holding are in his hand and he's controlling it. Yesterday he felt his knees and was kind of playing with them.
He definitely recognizes Laura and I. He's done like his first few giggles. And so all of that combined is the lack of sleep or the fact that at 05:00 a.m. He is just squawking away and like babbling in his crib.
Seems like a small price to pay. Now, again, my wife might kill me because shes like, youre not paying that price. I am. And its horrible. But were both having this just lovely time this morning. We were in bed early at 06:00 a.m. But he was up. He had done a blowout, so we were changing him and we got to do some kind of skin to skin time as he was just smiley and happy and playing around and kind of rolling. He's not quite rolling yet, but rolling around the bed and it's just great. It's just awesome. It's, you know, and it's this is the kind of stuff I want to make sure I remember and that's why I wanted to do this podcast. So on the Arthur front, it's just awesome. It's great.
It's hard, but it's we're in a really beautiful moment where he's happy and he's healthy and he's really kind of taking to the world.
On the work front, I'm doing some I'm feeling re energized. It's been a hard couple of months where I struggled to feel productive because I'm used to working a lot and now I'm kind of only working nine to five and I feel like it's hard for me to get stuff done. So I've really tried to push myself these last couple of weeks to get some things accomplished. And we're revamping how we do our meetings at work. And I think that's been really a kind of exciting and energizing thing for anyone who doesn't know my work. Company works 100% remotely, and there's some real challenges to that. I was a believer in 2020 that we never go back to the office, and it was great. Now I'm seeing the real downsides, mainly that people lose connection. And when you only talk to people virtually, it's hard to connect. And so I've tried to be very intentional about, as one friend put it, kind of creating serendipity, but also creating channels for discussion and frameworks around the meeting so that discussion will happen to get people to engage with each other. And I'm already, after a week, seeing the fruits of that. I had a meeting with my managers on Monday, and I to give people the framework. Basically, you kind of break the first rule of meetings, which is you don't set an agenda.
And then everyone goes around the room and has 1 minute, no more, no less, to tell everyone there are one to three big things they need to accomplish that week. You go around the horn, that takes five to ten minutes, and then you create your agenda from there. And everyone says, well, I need to talk about that with Bob. And Emily says, I need to talk about that with you, Rob. And you create your agenda, and then you roll through it. And we had an hour of some of the most vibrant discussion I've had as a group of managers in months or maybe years on a Zoom call. And it was really great. So I'm trying to add that into my all hands meeting as well. That experiment starts in 45 minutes, so I'll report back next time.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: But I'm trying to think when you have a. When you have a high functioning team and a good culture, you still need to be able to harness that to go somewhere. And one of the metaphors I use is like, you have a strong team of horses and a great carriage with all kinds of good stuff in it, but no harness. And sometimes it's just these little changes of, hey, there's brilliance inside this room, but we got to work to have it come out. And sitting and writing agenda, you know, all going on slack and putting our little piece of it doesn't build the harness. It's just kind of. It's a weak thing. And what you end up doing is because you're doing it live and creative and honest. Um, everyone just kind of going around saying their thing. It creates a much stronger agenda that then is easier to pound through. Second thing, you're doing is everyone's being primed on the activities before they go. And so I listened to you and I was thinking about how does your stuff relate to my stuff? That means I'm already working on that in the back of my mind. So twelve minutes, 1530 minutes later, when it's time to talk about that, I've actually had some cogitation already. So that's a great, great little tool.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the last thing I'll add is that. So this is where fatherhood is mixing with business for me. I'm reading a book called the Anxious Generation. It's basically so far about the poison of screen time for children and adolescents. I don't have time to go into that, I'm only a couple chapters in. More on that later. But one thing it talked about is that when you're growing face to face, synchronous communication is super important for human development.
The back and forth, the facial features, the discussion, the pushing something too far and having to pull it back, blah, blah, blah. But the synchrony, it has a whole section on how synchronous communication is important in a virtual world. When you're a virtual company, it is very easy to fall into asynchronous communication.
I'm going to send you a slack and then you're going to send me a slack. 20 minutes later I'm going to send you an email, hey, contribute to this presentation. And I am making a conscious effort right now to put synchronous communication back into our communication channels because it's important to make people feel connected. So more on that as the results come in.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: One other thing we learned, so this is when we were starting to do work from home concepts in the late 20 teens. So before lockdown, because most startups that I'd worked with already had hybrid work environment. It's just, it was the trend before it became mandatory trendy. And one of the things that was written about and I learned and it took to heart is make sure that everyone's on the same level. So if you and I are both on video, we're both on video. If we're, if you're, if you and I are in person, you don't then get a video person on the side. If you, if you're on video and I'm on audio, we both go to audio. Right. And especially with more than two people, it's really, really powerful and important to, to have everyone on the same level of communication. The second thing I'll say, it's a theory called communication richness. And it's how much communication is lost between face to face. Zoom, phone, email, text. And the rule of thumb is you lose 50% of fidelity every time you drop one of those.
And that's why we have so much trouble nowadays, is because text is completely context less. I have no emotion, I have no understanding, and it's all left. And then asynchronous. Well, it's probably, what is that? Five levels of having? So it's probably 6% as, as valid as a face to face meeting. And that's where people make huge mistakes, is they say, hey, and we call this handing the baton.
You can hand the baton by sending somebody a slack, but they didn't get it. You don't know when they're going to get it. You don't know how they're going to receive the information, but you feel like you've handed the baton off. So you stop thinking about it. When you're looking somebody in the eye, you can you tell they're confused. You can't hand the baton off until you get them to somehow confirm that they understand, verbally or non verbally. Um, anyway, I don't want to get too far into the crazy world of coaching that I've been in for seven.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Years, but I think it's super important. So forgive us all for our rants. We'll. Brad, let's work on a framework for this for the future.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Great. When we come back, we're going to have our interview with Dennis McMahon. You're not going to want to miss it.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Hello, everybody and welcome back. We're here with our interview with Dennis McMahon, a friend that I've known for well over ten years. We've done entrepreneurship together. We've done real business together. He was a father before me. The story that I love to tell about Dennis is he would be making millions of dollars as a branding and marketing expert if only he chose to live in LA or New York. And he doesn't. He choses to live in a, in Colorado mountains and I love him for it. We've been friends for a really long time and I can't wait to hear his thoughts on education for kids, being a father, as well as high end marketing and what it's like to work with the C suite of companies about what their brand is and what it does. And on that note, Dennis, welcome to the show.
[00:25:45] Speaker C: Thanks so much for having me, Brad. I'm really excited to chat about all these topics with you and see where the conversation takes us. Grateful for the opportunity well, we always.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Like to start off with a couple rapid fire questions, and so I'll hand it off to Rob. Rob, grill.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: Off to the races. So, Dennis, some real quick, quick ones. Right, first, how many kids, what ages?
[00:26:10] Speaker C: I have one child. I have a boy named Beck, and he's six years old.
Great.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: And then what's your current title and role for work?
[00:26:21] Speaker C: My current title is brand strategist, founder of a marketing agency, CEO on paper.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: CEO on paper. I like that.
And then how many companies have you been involved in throughout your career at a leadership level?
[00:26:40] Speaker C: I would say probably four different companies where I've been involved in leadership in one way or another, whether it was a supporting role for leadership or starting them up myself.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah, very cool. And then just to kind of kick us off here, can you just give the audience just kind of the brief bio on you, kind of tell us who you are?
[00:27:02] Speaker C: Yeah, you bet.
I grew up in central New York on a dairy farm, so I was born to irish Catholic farming family, and I got to see how hard my family worked, basically 28 out of 30 days a month, and how I really, I did not want that same burden from. From working. I wanted work to be a means to an end as opposed to my lifestyle. And so that sort of helped influence me into how to become more efficient and not work so stinking hard.
Although I'm just. I'm so grateful for having grown up with that experience. I think it instilled a terrific work ethic in me and also just an amazing upbringing to be outside all the time and know what it's like to put in the hours as a young kid and the reward that came from that. And just under 20 years ago, my girlfriend at the time, wife and mother of my child now, we moved out to Eagle County, Colorado, after we finished up college, and we've been here ever since. And it certainly is home now. And it's a great lifestyle and just a very, very positive place to be. I enjoy it a whole bunch.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: How did you make that choice for Eagle county?
[00:28:33] Speaker C: It was interesting.
When we were in school, we had a mutual friend that lived in Vail, and I actually had some family that lived out here that had left Central New York to move out here in the seventies. And my family member owned a print shop. I was graduating school for graphic design. And the mutual friend that we had shared, she worked at a bar in downtown in Vail, down on Bridge street in Vail, and my wife, bar attending in college. And over Thanksgiving, it was just kind of like, man, we want to get out in New York. We're done with school.
What if we just pick up and move to Vail? And we had been dating all of five months at that point, had never lived with a significant other up until that point. And yeah, we packed our stuff and moved out here mid January 2005, like a month and a half later after coming for a one week visit and just kind of thought, hey, we'll be out here for a few years, but 1919 plus years later, we're really rooted in this community now and just got real lucky that this was the choice that we made.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: Sure, I'm sure it was all luck.
So there's two other things I'd like the audience to know about. So you work at a high end branding company, which is yours, and you started it. And I want to go a little bit into what's the difference between generic branding and how you approach it. And I've been through your process before. Ski pods to trip hero was quite an adventure for me to see how you were dedicated to it. But I also want to start by talking about that your wife started a preschool in your home and that is now an alternative elementary school. Because, of course, where I want to go is how do you approach both of those concepts? The leadership of brand and being dedicated and thinking about it, and then also what it is to have a school and to raise kids. So we'll get to the integration of them first, but I'm just giving the audience where I'm going. So let's start with the school. Let's start with what it was like day one of a preschool in your house through the end of that story, and then let's also get to the elementary school part of it.
[00:30:45] Speaker C: Excellent. Yeah. Yeah, you bet. So the preschool in our home that had lasted ten years and my wife had shut it down last, just about a year ago right now in 2023. And that was the evolution of having done nanny gigs, having been a preschool teacher. But really, there were so many different families that were vying for her time as a nanny or providing childcare support in their home, where she was bouncing between homes, bouncing between schedules. And it really made the most sense to begin the preschool so that she had a little more control over her schedule and just bringing some consistency into the early childhood education for these kiddos. And it was really, it was really lucrative before we had kids. It was a terrific.
Because we didn't have a child that was going to the school, to the preschool that would have accounted for one of the bodies. It was a state license since preschool. And so there are capacity limits, maximum of six children between the ages. I'm going to get this wrong, but it's like two and a half to six or something like that. And it afforded us the time to travel. Every time there was a school break, it was just she and I, just a couple of dinks that would pack up, hit the road, and go explore somewhere in the world. And it was just. It was a nice business. That also allowed for a four day workweek back in 2013, 2014. And so that was a really good start to it. And then moving forward, we had a child, our son Beck, about four years into it, and then it just. It shifted, and not in a bad way, but it definitely was not very profitable any longer as we were hiring teacher, a teacher to take on Heather's role. So we were paying that salary and also eventually having our kid move into the student body. That was kind of like, well, one of the. One of the paying families now became occupied by ourselves, which is also a blessing, too, because we didn't have to pay for childcare. So it depends on how you look at it. Um, but then, yeah, that continued through until my. My boy was ready to wrap up his preschool years and. And now move into kindergarten.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: Oh, that's interesting. I didn't put it together that, yeah, the. The reason to stop preschool and start elementary school is, of course, your son matriculated. You matriculate out of preschool? Is that the word for it? I know they do graduation ceremonies all the time, so we did hold a graduation sari.
[00:33:44] Speaker C: I do not.
I do not know whether he had matriculated or not. I'll have to look that one up. But, yes, that was very much the case, was that, you know, we became parents at a little bit older of an age, and the idea of crawling around on the floor for six kids that were not our own really didn't make much sense to my wife any longer. And she had a serendipitous opportunity to join back in his academic journey by shutting down the preschool and actually opening an elementary school.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: So tell me about that. So now we got the rationale behind it, and a lot of what, when we're talking to dads and high functioning dads, it's about the transitions. We just. We're finding that to be a very common theme in these interviews. So the transition for you, though, to, okay, shutting one thing down, is the elementary school. Does it feel like a continuation, just a little bit different, or does it feel like a totally new world beast concept?
[00:34:43] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say that for the most part, it feels like a very new thing.
The elementary school is in a commercial space. It's located in a town called Edwards. It's about 20 minutes east of where we live, and there is a full time teacher. There was, the way it worked out was we were at the bmx track. My son likes to race bmx. And we met this awesome family who had moved to town a couple years earlier. And they said, oh, you're Heather. You're the, you're the person I always hear about who's the best child care professional in the county. They said, we want to start an elementary school so that our children have the education that we expect of them. And they've helped, you know, they've helped fund this project and also guide it and acquire the space and remodel the space to be a beautiful new school. And so, Heather, I like to tell the story that when the preschool ended, she said, I just want to be a barista or a florist or something where I can just go to my job, have a nice day, and then collect a paycheck and walk home. She didn't really want the, the burden and stress of being an entrepreneur again, but the opportunity was so great and the program is so unique that she just kind of fell into this and helped build this new school called unbound. And now they have twelve children. They're wrapping up their first year. It's been very successful. The parents love the school and the children are just thriving. They're learning so fast. It's a really cool deal.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: I want to get back to that a little more, but just to match my promise. So let's talk about branding and high five. And I guess the two questions I have in order are, why go it alone? Why start your own thing? Not jump inside of a crispin porter? And then the other thing is, what is mission driven branding? So they're probably a related answer, but thanks, Brad.
[00:36:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
I don't know, man. I feel like, I think entrepreneurship is in my DNA.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:37:03] Speaker C: I don't know how to describe it.
When I reflect on this.
My father, my family had the dairy farm, so my grandfather started that.
On the other side of my family, my great grandfather started a canning company. My grandfather was a gunsmith who ran his own business. My mom had her own accounting agency.
And it just, it just, it just feels normal. I just find comfort or that it's the way it should be for me to have that. Maybe it's a level of control, maybe it's a control freak thing, but also to just kind of write my own story and it feels natural.
So when I began high five, the catalyst for it was I had been working at a marketing agency.
My boss, she was absolutely terrific.
There were some things that I didn't really love the way they were going down. And I think that is the drive of many entrepreneurs, is, well, I could fix this, I could do this better, and I can be the one to affect that change. And that led me to where I was at. And ever since then, I've just high five is now ten years old, and we've got a great book of business. We've done some very meaningful work that's helped our community a ton, and I love it, and I love working with the team and I love working with the clients and heading into the mission driven branding.
When I started high five, I had this very forward thinking vision that traditional marketing agencies were broken because everybody had to wear a lot of hats because you can only afford so much for payroll. But meanwhile, the media landscape was multiplying every single day. Facebook was still Facebook, you still had a business page, there was no advertising. It was all just free. But meanwhile, it ipo'd for a ton of money and it was just hemorrhaging.
And as social media began to evolve and digital media began to evolve, now these traditional agencies with employees and a brick and mortar office are like, we don't have the talent to sustain a great, to create a really great multifaceted campaign. So I just started contracting with contacts that I had made over the years and also seeking out new contacts and partners to supplement my team. So I built a freelance marketing agency model, which now is the norm. And I think it was relatively innovative back at that time.
And what I love about my job, it's truly the relationships I share. It's the relationships I share with the team and the relationships I share with the clients. I went to school for graphic Design. I consider myself a pretty decent designer, but the designers I work with are exceptional. And I came to find that doing the design myself was kind of a waste of time when there are better people out there. And I just really enjoyed managing the teams, managing the strategy.
And now with mission driven marketing and branding, we largely serve nonprofits and government entities. So we really just try to focus on the core and the culture and how to increase the impact of these different organizations to better serve people in their communities. And that's where I find the most reward with our work, is helping people out. I love it, feels good.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: That's awesome.
There's a bunch of places I want to go with this.
I want to talk about. Well, let's start somewhere about entrepreneurship. So we talked to another entrepreneur earlier on in the pod, and the joke we all made was, entrepreneurship is a disease for which there is no cure, only management techniques.
And you mentioned your wife kind of being like, oh, God, can I just go collect a paycheck from someone else? Do I have to go do this again? But she felt a calling. Do you think she shares that same mentality as you, where it's like, I just kind of have to do it? Is it in her DNA, or is it a little bit more.
I don't want you to have to speak for her, but, like, is it a little bit more kind of out of her element?
[00:41:43] Speaker C: I do think it's a little bit more out of her element. I don't think that she has the same level of comfort with risk and change that I do.
However, the reward of having pursued this new endeavor is amazing. And truly, she has grown so much professionally by way of chasing this opportunity that I think there is.
When you look at it in the rearview mirror, it's like, yeah, I'm really glad I did that, Trey.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: And when you guys think about your two kind of parallel ventures, are you sitting around the dinner table going, well, let me help you to brand the school. Is she helping you with your team and things like that? Is it like a family business, or is it kind of, you guys do your work in your own offices, and then you come together, and it's kind of no cross collaboration?
[00:42:45] Speaker C: Oh, I mean, no. We're a pretty tight family, so it's fun to think about, to hear you ask that question. I hadn't really pondered it before, but, I mean, late last night, we were sitting on the couch, and she was like, I'd like to talk about the goals for the coming year for the school. And she had a really long list of tactics and things that she'd like to implement. And we worked together because in my marketing mind, I feel like I'm really good at bucketing information. So she leaned on me to bring in some kind of. To help bring some structure to the many strategies and tactics that she wanted to implement and how to roll those up to big goals. That was last night's conversation. And then a couple days ago, I play this funny game with her where we'll do, we're going to present logos to a client and say, you know, the fonts are subtly different for me. They're night and day but for most people, they'd be like, they're the same.
[00:43:41] Speaker B: I've been in a room. When you've done that. I've been in a room.
[00:43:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: Which you had to teach me better.
[00:43:47] Speaker C: Which fonts do you like better? And sometimes she'll have an opinion, but other times she's like, stop playing this magic eye game with me. You know, like, they're the same. I don't care, you know? But she always provides a great bit of feedback and catches things and notices stuff that I totally miss. So it's a great team, the way that we share our business experiences.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: Do you ever play the same game with your son?
[00:44:17] Speaker C: I don't think that I have from a work standpoint, but we do love to create together.
We come down and we'll do designs together. He creates custom birthday cards for his buddies when we have a kid's birthday party to go to, and it's a blast. So that's where we team up on the design and marketing stuff, is we'll ask a friend's parent before the birthday party, what is your child's five favorite things? And they'll list the five favorite things. And then Beck and I will come down to the desk, put on some beats, and then do Google image searches for the images that describe the five things. Like, I don't know if it's either going to be like, sometimes it's hot dogs, sometimes it's dinosaurs or unicorns or whatever it may be. And he always picks the gnarliest images from image results.
So the card becomes like, very.
They always have a real high level of intensity. When we complete the composition, it's an absolute blast.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Do you think you'd ever, you know, if he was like, you know, I know he's still young, but if he's, like, 1012 15 and wants to help dad out with business, would you, would you hire him as a designer? Would you let him do that?
[00:45:34] Speaker C: I mean, I'll support him with anything that he wants to pursue. Absolutely. I would encourage him not to get a job at the computer, though. I'd encourage him to spend time outdoors.
Yeah. When I studied graphic design, it was really, I love fine art, and I, by way of the fine art courses that I was taking, it led me to graphic design. And it was really, I was an early twenties kid. It was like, well, if I get a fine art degree, I'm going to be a peasant my entire life. So I should probably choose graphic design without the foresight that that meant I'd be sitting at a desk all day, every day. And, you know, eventually that won't be the case any longer. I'd like to get back to my roots and pursuing fine art, but again, I love what I do. The business is great. I feel very fortunate to be in the position that I'm in. And, yeah, I'd say, beck, let's just.
You can be a designer, you can be an artist, or you can be anything you want, but make sure you're not sitting on your butt all day long.
[00:46:38] Speaker B: Dennis, I think for me, your true superpower, and you've got many talents, but your true superpower is taking chaos and into process. And I've heard that already on this pod again. And I physically saw you take the chaos of the branding of ski pods and through process and through thought, turn it into something that makes sense. And I remember going through the different characters that this person could be, and we picked it. And you have different names and different fonts, but there was always a reason and a rationale, because you were trying to bring us out of not sure what this is into something anyone can understand. I truly think that that's one of your superpowers. And watching you also do this with your wife in the elementary school, unbounded. But then I want to ask if that superpower works at all. With being a father. You're working with an agent of chaos known as a son. And do you just ride it out or do you try and create process? Do you have conversations? What is it like from behind your eyeballs, taking this. This talent, super talent of yours, superpower, and then trying to apply it to this little brain that's half your genetics?
[00:47:41] Speaker C: That's a funny thing, man.
And I really appreciate you saying that, Brad. I had a client, and it'll stick with me till the day I die. She said, very much like you did. She said, you know, your superpower is. She said, you're a synthesizer of information. You're able to be able to take a whole bunch and make it feel real small and manageable. And I loved hearing that. And when it comes to parenting, dude, I don't. I don't know if. I don't know. Like, I don't know if I do apply it. I think I end up in more of just this, like, cliche, male homo sapien role where it's just, like, direct, rational thought and why isn't it. Why isn't it being received right now?
You know, if you do this, this is gonna happen. But you know what? You gotta learn. So I guess you gotta do it anyway.
[00:48:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:36] Speaker C: And so I don't, I don't think so, Matt. I don't think I'm able to bridge that gap between data and information and parenting it. Maybe I can. I'm gonna think more about that.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: Ah, good. Well, we always love to ask that.
[00:48:50] Speaker A: That's. I do think that that's been a theme with all of our guests so far. We'll ask, like, all right, so you're really good at all these business things. Like, how does that translate your parenting? And everyone goes, it doesn't. I can't. I can run a whole team. I can market the heck out of something. I can sell. I can get people to do what I want, and then I'm at home and I'm just along for the ride. Like, none of it works.
[00:49:11] Speaker C: It really feels like that on the surface. I mean, like, it would be like I couldn't, I couldn't bridge cooking and dinner time and clean up and preparing for bedtime and bring it all together into some meaningful package where it all just makes simple sense. It's. No, it's more just like, it's a little bit reactionary.
I'm very consistent in my position on.
[00:49:45] Speaker B: Stuff, but, yeah, the chaos of doing branding for government agencies, going through digital transformation, no problem.
[00:49:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
Managing a board and 15 different opinions and perspectives on a general topic. I got it. We can work with this. But, yeah.
[00:50:08] Speaker B: So that's something that we often encounter. Like, how does it not translate? So the separation of the two, but then where do they come together? Where is it? The things you learn from being a father that you bring into business that you wouldn't have thought or the other way around, but where is the harmony spot? And it's okay if there isn't one, but oftentimes we find there is.
[00:50:29] Speaker C: I would say that the really obvious one for me, Brad, is I've looked at some of my competitors in the past with a little. Little bit of envy. And what I mean is they've created large agencies or bigger agencies. They built up employee bases. They've got a book of business that is national clientele and reputable, you know, brands that we would recognize.
And there's a part of me that, like, would want that. And I think, man, it would be so cool, you know, to bring down, like, all this money and have all these big clients. But then I.
What? The whole time I feel that way. I know it's my ego talking, and so I kind of silence it a little bit. But I would say that when it comes to parenting, that just really solidifies the fact that this company I've created is, in fact, a lifestyle brand for me. It affords me the time to do the things that I enjoy, to be with my family, to take breaks, to delegate responsibilities to team members, make it, make, earn a living. That sustains my lifestyle, but doesn't mean I'm going to retire early. Might not retire at all. Who knows?
[00:51:47] Speaker B: You're not going to retire at all if you have the entrepreneur bug.
It's a myth. It's just moving on to a different form of thing. But go ahead, Rob.
[00:51:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: Or Dennis. You got to finish your thought.
[00:52:00] Speaker C: No, that was really it. It's just that you realize what's important, you know, and that's peaceful as you.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: Because I wanted to kind of dive into this model you built, which is kind of the freelance marketer marketing agency.
And I know you've kind of decided to live in the mountains and all those things, but given the fact that you would work with freelancers and the world, especially now, is so digital and remote, what do you find? That geography is still kind of a barrier to growing the business, or kind of, what are the barriers to growing the business and finding new brands to work with?
[00:52:38] Speaker C: The barrier to growing the business is me.
It's my need to maintain an incredibly high level of quality and what we deliver and also keep my fat little fingers in everything.
I am the bottleneck. However, about eight months ago, I began working with a guy named Evan, who's kind of my sidekick, and he's helped offload a lot of the things that I would do in the basic production realm. That meaning small website updates, light account management, some production and team management, and things like that. And he's been. He's grown a ton, and so he's been able to take a lot off of my plate. That's freed me up from being that bottleneck. And now I feel like I'm in a position where we will begin pursuing more clients that are outside of the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado. Time is freeing up. Efficiencies are being found. New systems have been stood up with software and things like that. And so I am in a very calculated growth mode, if you will, and I do enjoy that.
And the other thing, too, is Eagle county. Nonprofits and government entities have been very, very good to us.
It's a loyal client base. Whenever anybody in this small little valley of ours has a need, and they're in that space, they say, call Dennis at high five. And then we get jamming. So it's very much my community has sustained this business and the team that we have. And it's nice to see the change around us, too, just by the work that we do.
[00:54:31] Speaker B: Want to highlight one thing, Rob, you can ask a question. I just want to highlight one thing, because most people listen to this in audio only, so they can't see what Dennis is doing while he's talking. And you can see how calculating he is through his thoughts by watching his eyes as he's trying to stitch together the answer and make it into a logical construct. And it's an amazing thing to watch. But since we only put about half these on YouTube or whatever, I just wanted to give the audience, what is a polymath? Who's trying to answer a deep question? What are they doing with their face and their eyes? And he's just doing a calculated. This makes sense. This is how I'm going to approach it, and this is how it's probably going to go. And here's where I'm going to be dynamic. You can just see him doing it with his face.
That's why we're friends.
[00:55:14] Speaker A: That's very cool to watch.
And all I was going to ask is Dennis. A couple of weeks ago on this podcast, Brad walked us through his red line, blue line, black line framework. And I'm not sure if he's ever walked you through that, because I know he's known you a long time, but it sounds like exactly what you're doing, which is starting to offload some of the more kind of time intensive, but blue line and black line work, and you're focusing on the growing of the business and the red line work, the pathfinding, and that sounds really exciting. Do you find that refreshing as well?
[00:55:46] Speaker C: 1000%? Yes. It energizes me because tying this all together, too, with the preschool and my wife now in the elementary school, and not having six children literally on the other side of the wall in my office right now.
When we moved into this home three years ago, I really began thinking about, I want high five. To become an asset unto itself. That's not just the dentist show. And when my child goes to kindergarten, I would like this to become more of a business that can sustain itself and ideally become something of value that maybe one day down the road, 510 plus years, I could sell it.
And I think that would be awesome to create something great and then let somebody take it from there.
And so that's been. That's been very planned out, and we've been making incremental steps to grow this brand. And grow the book of business. And so, yeah, it's, this has been a few years in the works of kind of heading in this direction, and I'm seeing the reward of it and I'm loving it. It's just so much fun. Yeah.
[00:57:05] Speaker B: One of the key indications of success from all time is delayed gratification. And that started with the famous Stanford Marshmallow tests. Can you get a four year old to sit in front of a marshmallow for five minutes for the promise of two and about a third of them, no chance, just marshmallow. Eat it right away. And about a third of them, they just do their best, but then they kind of eat their sides or whatever. But a third of kids can sit there for five minutes and wait. And then when you follow those kids over 2025 years, and theres other factors involved, of course, its complex, but thats also kind of what youve been doing. Its, you know, you cant blow up high five without blowing up your life, and you knew that, but you cant also let it stay where its at. And so how do you make the right moves in the right time to thread the needle between its growing, because its good and its got a reputation and theres a little bit of youve been doing this for ten years. You owe it to your ten year back self and your ten year next self to grow this to turn into something, but not too much, not too fast. And that's something that I love to hear from you, Dennis. It's part of the wisdom that you have and why I want you on the pod, because so many of the people we meet, especially the younger side of the father journey, they still just, they want to go after things, everything with gusto. And three years is the longest timeframe they can imagine. And if I can't make this into a million, billion, trillion dollar company in three years, I have failed. And you're like, no, no, man. Base hits every quarter. Let's put it in place. It's never lose. Like, our biggest losses should be minor. Let's just grow this thing. And it's also be absolutely present for, you know, this journey that your kids on, that you're also on as well. So just. Brad, reflections anyway, I like that.
[00:58:43] Speaker C: I like that. Yeah. Brad, when you and I had met, we were there was the leadership institute, you know, was kind of how we came together in a roundabout way. And I always, I believe in really paying attention to your core values and what you stand for, which ties into marketing. And I'd be happy to go down that route in a little bit, too. But the one that I found is just so vitally important to me is being resourceful.
And the reason is, is because when. When I'm wasteful or something is wasteful, it makes me insane.
I can't handle it. I can't handle the waste of time or money or natural resources or anything. So just being a steward of the resources that we have available and being resourceful is core to my character. And I think that's also driven this really kind of intentional, responsible growth is that I never want to grow for the sake of growing. I want to grow and help the people that we serve more and more through our growth, bringing on to new team members, providing additional services. If I do that, I don't just want to hire the first person that provides social media marketing. I want to. I want to build a relationship with that individual, see that they can provide the quality of service that I've come to expect in everything that we do, and then slowly move into that realm as an example.
[01:00:23] Speaker B: I love that. I didn't know that about you. I'll just share mine from the leadership because we took a similar stance there. But going through the cards mind ended up being the heart of the matter, and that's my card and that's my driving core value. And I use the Socratic method with people all the time to just bring them down to the heart of the matter. And then once we find it, either they just have the clarity of knowing it, or I can then. And then clarity of knowing it, that can just be good enough, or then they also have clarity of knowing action, or that's another thing that I bring into my coaching. I'm saying, well, if this is your core problem, heart of the matter need, I've seen this before. Here's a good set of examples and stuff. So I also grew quite a lot through that institute, which is, there's a larger story there which we shall not tell here.
I also love that you brought up the word stewardship, and that's actually what I was kind of thinking about. It's a similar concept that you can apply both to fatherhood, but also to this brand you've created. You've birthed both of these things. One's a physical child, one's an entity, but you are stewarding them both well, and one of them's a little bit more. We call chop wood, carry water, work the other way. I say it is. 28 year old Brad could never handle the volume of dishes that 43 year old Brad now has to do. I would have been resentful and angry. And now I kind of go, it's chopped wood, carry water. I do dishes every morning, every night, and it's fine. But then also the stewardship of this brand and these people who have been loyal to you, whether your customers or your freelance employees who've been with you for a long time, or even your past and future self, there's also a stewardship to hi fi. It's not something that you could get the big check and shut down tomorrow because it would be wasteful of the brand that you've built and the work you've done over ten years. That was a really interesting reflection. Dennis, thank you.
[01:02:07] Speaker C: Thanks, Brad. Yeah, some basic golden rule stuff in my mind, and that ties back to my upbringing. It's just, yeah, just do unto others and take care of everybody, you know, give.
[01:02:26] Speaker A: When you think about that resource management, Dennis, because I know one thing I know a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with is this balance between, I shouldn't waste a dollar.
Every dollar goes towards my Runway or my employees, or it means something. Right? But then also, sometimes you have to make those investments and you don't know if they're going to pay off. So how do you think about that kind of balance? And do you think maybe your stewardship and resistance to wasting cash has kept the business alive? Or do you think it maybe has slowed growth or some combination of the two?
[01:03:04] Speaker C: I would say it is a combination of the two, because at the same time, we are, we are marketers. I am a marketer. There needs, you need to take chances. And sometimes the ballsiest moves end up with the biggest rewards. And so I'm very cool with maybe call it a little bit more of, like, taken a little bit of a gamble, but a calculated gamble.
But also, I think of one of the peers, one of our buddies that Brad and I have, a guy named Rich that has an incredible website development company, and one of the partners, for lack of a better term, that has been with, we've been working together since starting high five.
He's very good at moving forward and making the investments and doing it at a quicker clip. And I feel like I'm always about five to six years behind him, maybe even closer to ten. But I always end up finding that I'm coming around to the same things that Rich has told me and taught me a number of years prior and that I knew he was right all along. But it definitely takes me longer to, to latch onto it and make those investments or stand up those different services or other things like that.
[01:04:31] Speaker B: Well, shout out to rich, stats and secret stash. Love, Rich. I don't know if he's a father yet. I haven't seen him in six or eight years. I doubt it.
Nope.
[01:04:41] Speaker C: Rich is not a father. But he's doing rich and he's doing it real well.
[01:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah, Rich is quite. And you guys partnered in a, um, in a brief entrepreneurial adventure that we can also, we can drop that one off later. Um, but calculated gamble was, was something that I really heard out of that one. The other bit is, yeah. How you, how you gain wisdom. And so one of the things you were just talking about is that Rich might have given you knowledge six or eight or ten years ago, but you had to, like, refine it your own way for it to be wisdom. And I want to ask that about being a good father, which I assume you are.
Where do you go for knowledge? How have you figured out wisdom? How do you think about fatherhood? And I'm going to give you a couple more seconds to think on it. What we're hearing from other people we interview is that they have thought deeply about this. They've just never been asked the question.
And so just know that you're in good company if you don't have an immediate answer, because it's just, it's something in the back of your mind you've cogitated on but you've never expressed.
[01:05:42] Speaker C: Yeah, there are a couple different places that I go for that. And one is just my dad.
He's my hero. He's the greatest man I'll ever know. And I think about what he went through to raise myself and my brother and how consistent he was, too.
And just at his core, just an amazing man. And he inspires me. So I take inspiration from my upbringing and then also my wife is. She's, she's the foremost expert in understanding kids and social emotional intelligence and early childhood education and, and instilling the values of empathy and patience and tolerance and resilience in children. So I default to her position a lot because she's a pro.
So I trust her judgment a lot. But then on the other side, children share different relationships with their mother and father. And it's not, it's not always, this is mom's role in mom's position. You know, it depends on the family, but there's always going to be a softer touch and there's going to be a firmer, a firmer position.
And so I think we end up with this nice yin and yang balance and raising our child where she is, I mean, she's. She's like mother Teresa. Her heart is huge, and I'm. And I'm a dude, and so I have. I have limited patience for certain things, but at the same time, I can also.
I can easily empathize with my kiddo when he's in a situation that's bothering him, but, you know, when he's acting a fool, I'm not afraid to tell him that. Call him out on it and say, don't you bother running to your mother, you know, because she's just gonna. She's gonna, you know, she's gonna.
He plays her like a fiddle, you know?
Yeah. With the emotions and with me, he knows I don't really. It doesn't work the same way, so it's just this balance in the home and. Yeah. Just the way I was raised to.
It's all of those things that's really kind of at the core. I don't necessarily read a lot of books or do a ton of research because I. I've got the expert that lives under my roof, too, and I can learn a lot from her.
[01:08:24] Speaker B: Thank you.
[01:08:27] Speaker A: It's amazing to have that. I feel like I'm in a little bit of a similar position. My wife happens to be a doctor, and it's funny for her. She finds that all of that knowledge and all of the calm, cool, don't worry about it. That she's able to channel when she's talking to her patients who are worried about their children, just completely goes out the window when it's our.
She's able to reflect after the fact. Like, I know if someone walked in when, like, our son had cradle cap or, like, some baby acne is like, I know. I would just tell them, don't worry about it. It's totally fine, but when it's mine, I can't help but freak out. So do you find that you're, as you guys look at your own child, it. Even though you should objectively know what to do, does it kind of. Does the world get warped when you kind of look that close?
[01:09:18] Speaker C: Absolutely, yeah. I think that's normal. I think that's an industry agnostic situation, you know?
[01:09:26] Speaker A: For sure.
[01:09:27] Speaker C: Yeah. In the case of my wife, she's like.
She's like, I know I'm the hardest on our kid at school, and she can be her typical teacher. Not typical, but, like, she takes her standard approach with all of the other children, but then when it's ours, she. She doesn't really.
She doesn't handle him with the same kid gloves that she would with other kids, as you described with your wife. And being a doctor.
Yeah, I'd say that's probably normal. As a marketing agency, I don't even own a business card, but meanwhile, I'm doing multiples a week for all of our clients, so it's weird how that works. What do you guys know about that?
Why is it that way?
[01:10:14] Speaker B: Well, cognitive bias is a huge part of how we are able to suffer through life.
And a lot of my clients, not a lot of them, but every client at some point in time, says, this call was worth it, just for the perspective. Nothing actually changed except for the perspective. And why, and I say it like this, you can't see the back of your own head.
You cannot see it. And you could think in your head. Well, I could get a mirror, and even that wouldn't really work. You wouldn't understand that place. But another person can come and talk to you through it and talk to you about it, but it's your head. It's always been your head. It's something you control, and you have a lot of agency over, but you can't see it. And that's going to be the same thing that we're good at. And that's why having friends, having coaches, and a large part why Rob and I decided to do this podcast was we didn't know where we could get other advice, including we're kind of dancing around this idea of having, like, a dad board. Like, treat it a little bit like a business, and like, okay, you have to, like, come to your board and say, hey, what'd you do? Or, hey, here's my plan to execute in the next quarter. And, you know, here's the metrics to be held to, and it's just an idea on it. But what Rob and I really came into, because both of our kids are six months apart, ten and four months old, that there just wasn't a lot out there except for really bland, like, first time fatherhood for dummies or bro bra podcasts. We didn't know where to get this depth. And very much this is a self serving podcast for us. It's our opportunity to interview lots and lots of high functioning dads so that we can get perspective on ourselves. So this is really a very selfish endeavor, in case anyone's wondering.
[01:11:50] Speaker A: Yeah, 100% selfish endeavor. And I think my perspective is to add on. I agree with everything Brad said. I think there's something about the nerves you get when there's stakes on the line.
Like, if I'm looking at someone else's business, and they go like, should I hire or fire this person? Should I enter this new market or not?
I'm pretty good at being very confident at like, oh, I can see what you should do. You should do this.
And then in my own business, it's like, should I hire or fire this person? Should I do. The stakes are personal. All of a sudden, like, I can't figure it out. I've got no idea. It's so much harder. Whereas you come in from the outside. Oh, that's an easy choice.
You should do this. And I think that's with our kids and with a million other things, but when it's our child, it's like, yeah, but if I'm. If I. There's the obvious thing, but if I'm wrong, I really, really care about the consequences. And it muddles completely our ability to think clearly.
[01:12:48] Speaker B: What was that?
[01:12:48] Speaker C: I think you lose a sense of objectivity when you're on the outside looking at something else versus looking internally, because. Yeah, emotion skews your perspective.
[01:13:00] Speaker B: Rob, what was that book? Or maybe that thought that it was like the french pause, or am I saying that right?
[01:13:07] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:13:08] Speaker B: As a baby falls or cries or does something, and you just, as the parent, you pause for a moment and check, are they going to pick themselves back up? Are they actually bleeding? And I need to go get a thing.
And I think about that, because I'm not that great at it with Theo, but since we've talked about it, I'm better.
And, you know, I see other parents, perhaps when I'm married to who? It's not that easy. You know, my child is crying, and my whole system is moving towards just immediately helping with that, even if it's not necessarily the best course.
So let's just.
[01:13:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I think. I think taking that moment to have a perspective kind of let the emotions come down in business, in fatherhood, definitely been helpful for me. And I know that this is so cliche, but I know that the moms struggled more, the baby crying for mom. I don't know if Dennis, this is your experience, but I definitely can sit and look at him crying and going, like, I'm going to go help him, but it doesn't rip my heart out of my chest like it does for my wife, where she's just like, I'm going completely insane. I have to fix this right now.
[01:14:15] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know if that is a universal truth, but from where I'm sitting, it seems pretty accurate.
[01:14:23] Speaker A: It seems. It seems to me, and that's. I think it's probably a testament to how awesome the moms are and how much they put into this. They take it more seriously than us. They feel it more in their core.
[01:14:39] Speaker C: Yeah. There's some kind of energy connection that happens there, and maybe if we put on.
Put on some x ray goggles or something, we could actually see the physical, the metaphysical connection between the two hearts of a parent, of a mom and a child. It's. It's a wild thing that they share.
[01:15:01] Speaker B: The question you were kind of answering before, but I'd like to ask directly. So the things that your father did well, that you are absolutely going to copy and things that are being left behind, and that's not necessarily say he screwed anything up, but, like, he didn't have a framework on screen time.
Right.
It could also be, look, my dad likes apples and I like oranges or whatever. So you kind of answered the things that, the great things you learned from your father already, empathy, heart, emotion. But what are things that don't translate from you receiving as a child this type of parenting and what you can give to beck for whatever the reasoning doesn't matter, but, like, what are the new things that you're working on or seeing?
[01:15:43] Speaker C: Hmm.
Um.
Man, um, I would say that something that I heard recently was actually from my next door neighbor.
And I'm not saying my dad did this at all.
[01:16:02] Speaker A: He did.
[01:16:03] Speaker C: He didn't.
He didn't battle this, but something that I'm paying closer attention to now is my neighbor said, and I love that.
She's like, I don't offer, nobody wants to offer parenting advice because everybody wants to offer parenting advice is kind of how she led with it. But your child is who they are, and you're not going to change who they are. They have a personality. They are a unique character, and they will be that way whether you push back against it or whether you embrace it. So save yourself the stress and make sure to foster that relationship that you care with that's so important between you and your child by just embracing who they are. And in my case, I mean, my kid is. He's so cool. He's just like, he's such a cool guy, and he tries hard to just come off as, like, slick and cool. And he walks with swagger and stuff. And it pisses my wife off because he looks like such a hot shot. For example, like, if he calls one of the dads at the school bra.
[01:17:17] Speaker B: Right?
[01:17:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:17:18] Speaker C: And my wife is like, oh, my God, would you please not bruh, the parents at the school. And she's so embarrassed by it. But on the other hand, it's just like, I think it's my fault that because I talked to him like that, we listen to hip hop and we just kind of bro down a little bit. And so I think I've caused that to be a little more ever present in his general demeanor.
But then if you push back on it, and when I just see him operating, like, on his own, doing his own thing, talking with his friends and stuff, it's just kind of who he is, too. So as much as we want to be like, dude, chill out with the cool guy stuff, I think he'll just grow into it, and it's going to be a very redeeming characteristic, and people are going to love him for it, but, you know, forever we're figuring out who we are. And so as that starts to. As he starts to grow into that kind of, uh, character that that is innate to him, it'll be interesting to see where it goes. So I I don't want. I don't want to multiply it, but I also don't want to push back on it. Um, so I don't know. I don't necessarily think that's anything different from how my dad had raised me, but it's something that I'm probably a little more aware of right now, just because it's a. It's a fresh conversation.
[01:18:50] Speaker A: It's funny. That makes me think about one of my bigger fears, which seems weird, but I wonder about, I don't want my son to be too cool too early, and that feels cocky because I don't know if he's going to be cool at all, but he's four months old. But I worry about.
We split our time between the UK and the US. It's quite possible he could have a british accent that tends to go over well in the US, things like that. And I'm like, am I setting him up to, like, peak in elementary school?
I really want him to, like, both have an easy childhood, but also experience some adversity. So I think about that stuff. Not that I could control any of it, but it's definitely on my mind.
[01:19:33] Speaker C: You know, it's also. I also see it as.
It's sort of.
I wouldn't say that his confidence is skin deep, but it's definitely. It's a bit of a barrier that he's putting up to by way of projecting that character, but on the inside, he's got a squishy lovey heart, too, just like his mom does. And so I think it's a little bit. It's a little bit of a shell. It's. But he's also very much a performer. He loves to perform, he loves to get people laughing and things like that. So I think it's, it's sort of an act, but it's also who he is. And I think it just blends really nicely so that when you, when you meld that in with being, like, just a really sensitive guy, it creates a nice balance for him, and it gives him different places to go, depending on the situation he's in and how to respond to stuff.
[01:20:35] Speaker B: I know Rob's going to be getting to the wrap up questions here, but something that I can't help but talk about, I think in every single interview, is we eventually get to this place where as dads, a big part of our mind is to be the observer. We need to observe what's happening and then say, how do we help and support? And I think that's part of what we talk about. This podcast is for us, for modern fatherhood, and that it wasn't necessarily as true in the eighties and nineties when we were kids and dads were participating in this way, observing us and finding our wins and our losses, or even just such a. Such an incredible way that you just talked about.
It's skin deep and it's who he is, and it doesn't matter who he is, you're going to support it, and you're going to help shore up the difficulties and help promote the benefits without coddling him in no way and saying you're going to put emotional bumpers on everything so that he never has to run into trouble. But that you observe him, it's pretty much a near universal in our interviews so far, is that something about modern fatherhood is we observe our children instead of judge them.
[01:21:39] Speaker C: That's a.
You're kind of now bringing me, Brad, around to answer the last question that you had by making more sense of it for me. And that is, I just think there's a higher level of self awareness with our generation where we're, you know, for some of us, maybe where we're able to bestow that upon our children and help them understand better. I mean, social emotional intelligence wasn't even a concept in the seventies, you know, when. When our parents were coming up. And so I would say that's probably something that my wife is exceptional at bringing to parenting, but it's also something that I'd say I'm pretty aware of as well, is like, what is it? I love the observation, seeing the things that make him light up where he's lost in the moment and then supporting that and elevating that and also discussing with him how and why he felt the way he did at that moment in time and going through the steps of, well, what could we have done differently so that you had a better outcome the next time? And we are constantly reflecting on bringing up examples of things that have happened in the past. Remember when this happened or that happened and how did you feel at that point in time? And so then when we're moving into a similar situation, he can refer back to those and start to develop a deeper intuition of, well, I knew that this happened before, and then if I change my position, then I can affect what's about to happen right now for the better. So I would say that's something I'm probably bringing more to parenting than maybe I had originally, because it was, you know, it was go outside, play in the dirt, get dirty, come home, you know, do it all over again kind of thing. It was a different time.
And with that self reflection, I just.
I'm gonna. I'm gonna kind of riff for a quick second to getting back into branding and marketing and mission driven branding and marketing and parenting and all this style. This all. It's all kind of like, congealing for me right at this moment, is that.
[01:23:54] Speaker A: You're welcome.
Thanks.
[01:23:58] Speaker C: When we. When we just really pay attention to the things that are most critically important, I don't care if it's your business and it's going to be your unique value proposition, or you're a nonprofit and these are the key differentiators, or you're a parent and this is. This is who your child is at their core.
Or I'm a parent, and these are my values that I stand for above all else.
When we make decisions based on those things that are most valuable and most important to us, and we communicate that outwardly, then there's just. There's just such a deeper level of trust that is built. And I think that people or organizations or others, whatever it is, you will flourish by way of being honest with yourself and identifying those things, reflecting on them, and then making decisions around those core values or those things that are important to you.
[01:24:54] Speaker A: So that's incredible. I love it.
[01:24:57] Speaker B: Mic drop.
[01:24:57] Speaker A: I think it's great.
I think that's a tough one to follow. So I think, Dennis, unless there's anywhere else you want to go in this interview, I'd love to kind of wrap up with the three questions we ask every guest.
[01:25:10] Speaker C: I'm in. Yeah, let's do it. All right.
[01:25:11] Speaker A: Let's do it. So, first and foremost, are there any resources that you have that you love, that you wish you'd had earlier in your fatherhood journey?
[01:25:33] Speaker C: I can't say that I have any resources, but what I can say that made me think of is that it just gets better and better as. As my child gets older, I feel like I am. I become a better parent, and that I. We get to connect on the deeper level because you. You become. You relate more. You know, you get to relate more with your child, and your child can relate more with you, and rational thought starts to develop and things like that. So I just, like, I don't have resources to share, per se.
I would say that, like, the acting curriculum seems like a really good curriculum for early childhood education. That's what my wife leverages, and that's what they utilize in the school that my child is in. And I really like that because it involves socratic discussion and deepening listening skills for children. Something I feel is largely lost in our society is the inability to hear others position. So, as far as resources go, I love socratic discussion, I love groupthink, and really just trying to strengthen listening skills with this younger generation so they don't end up in the freaking polarized political shitstorm that we're living in right now with.
Well, if you're not with me, then you're against me, and I'm right and you're wrong. So Acton was a great tool for that.
I just. I like. I like watching this guy grow, and I. And I like the relationship evolving. Two totally different responses.
[01:27:09] Speaker A: Well, Dennis, we'll have to grab some information from you about what the actin is, and we'll. We'll put it in the. In the description of this episode.
So the next thing we want to ask everybody is. So we have a little segment at the end of this show called dad wins and dad fails, and Brad and I go through our wins and fails for the week. We do it in business, and we do it in fatherhood. So a win could be that my son took his sat up for the first time or rolled over. A fail could be I got pooped on in a restaurant. So we won't make you limit yourself to the last two weeks or so, but so, at any time, what's an all time dad win for you? When did you feel like you were just crushing it as a dad and then help us all feel better about being imperfect. What was, like, a dad fail? It was one time we were like, I totally missed the mark.
[01:27:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
I would say that one of my best dad wins.
And this is probably not really where we're looking to go, but when my wife left town for the first time for an overnight and left back with me to just. To just dad it on my own, that was my greatest dad when. Because quite literally the moment that she was walking out the door, the boy goes, mom, my tummy hurts. And I'm thinking he's just being emotional, and he's nervous that mom's leaving because that's the conversation that we have. And the kid started puking from the minute that her wheels left the driveway.
[01:28:37] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[01:28:39] Speaker C: And he just. He was so. He was the sickest I think he's ever been in his life. And he didn't get better until basically when she pulled back in the driveway the next day. And as much as she wanted to come home, I was like, will you please let us suffer through this together so that you know that no matter what, I've got this covered. He knows that he can trust me in these situations. And also, I have the reassurance that I can get through something like this.
[01:29:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[01:29:07] Speaker C: And so that was probably.
[01:29:08] Speaker A: I think that that's a perfect story. That is exactly what we're looking for. That is like. That is. That is perfect. Dadwin. That was well done. Congratulations.
[01:29:17] Speaker C: It was. It was unbelievable.
[01:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:29:19] Speaker C: That was the first overnight. And then biggest dad win here. Can I offer one in the middle?
A win slash fail? Sure. When my. When my. When Beck was a tiny guy, we would walk around the park, and I hate litter. It's. This ties back to my resourcefulness. So I'd pick up trash.
It was great because the kid would pick up trash. But now the kid picks up everything, and it's like, would you please put the cigarette butt down, dude? It's disgusting. And so there was a win in there in the sense that he's an environmental steward, but there's a fail in there that he sees everything, and he kind of overshot. Yeah. And he'll just. It's like we're in the throes of COVID and he's finding dirty old masks in the side of a parking lot, and he's like, oh, dad, trash. Oh, God. Put it down.
So there's a wind fail, and then as far as the wind goes, I would just say the best wins are just watching him. Just.
Just be sweet and treat other people just give this morning, honestly, I was sick in bed this morning before this, and he brought me his favorite lovey from his bed, his giraffe. It's the most important thing that he owns. There's nothing of higher value in his entire life that he possesses. And when I woke up after they had left to go to school, his giraffe was next to my face. And that, that melted me, because it just meant that, dad, I'm going to help you, and I'm going to give you the thing that's the most important for me, because I know you're having a tough time right now, and I'm going to do this for you to make you feel better. And so when I see that type of behavior, that's when I'm like, yeah, we're doing a really good job here.
[01:31:14] Speaker A: That is just awesome. That's so cute. I'm looking for it. I'm looking forward to those days. I hope. I hope I get those days.
[01:31:22] Speaker C: Oh, you're gonna, you're gonna. There's so much good yet to come. And you become such a.
I don't know. I don't know if you guys feel this way, but sometimes it's like they're. Only. Mom can only solve these things, certain things, many things right now, and I'm more here to provide and provide support. But then as you, as your child gets a little bit older, it's more like we're going fishing, right? Like, we're jumping the truck, mom, we're out of here, you know, and you get to do these things and relate, and it's just, oh, my gosh, it's so much fun.
[01:31:53] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I'm at the. I'm at the point in my journey where, like, the furthest I can go is, like, take him downstairs on my own to let mom sleep for another hour. Like, that's the extent of my, like, getting the loan time and getting them away. Uh, and I'm looking forward to those days where just the freedom gets further and further out and we can leave mom behind. Boys only.
[01:32:13] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Dude's time. We love it.
[01:32:15] Speaker A: Dude time.
[01:32:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:32:19] Speaker A: Well, Dennis, I will ask you our last question, uh, which we ask all the dads, which is, tell us your favorite dad joke.
[01:32:27] Speaker C: So glad you asked, because I've been. This has been something I've been wanting to share because I have amazing. And, um, do you know, do you know when a joke becomes a dad joke?
[01:32:40] Speaker A: When.
[01:32:41] Speaker C: Oh, it's easy. It's a parent.
[01:32:44] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Well done, parents.
[01:32:53] Speaker A: So good. We're actually getting a lot of really good tattoos.
[01:32:56] Speaker B: We really are.
[01:32:57] Speaker A: This is really good. This segment has been better than I expected it to be. It's very good, everyone. Everyone's bringing the heat. I love it.
[01:33:05] Speaker C: Awesome. So fun.
[01:33:08] Speaker A: Well, Dennis, if any of our listeners want to follow up with you, if they want to learn more about hi five, if they just kind of want to hear from you, where can they go? What should they do?
[01:33:17] Speaker C: Oh, terrific. Yeah.
If you're interested in chatting, anytime, our website is high five.com. Say it the same way I do on the phone. It's spelled funny. It's h y f y.
Come look us up there. Drop me a note, book a call, and we'll chat. I'd love to, love to hear from anybody that like to talk more.
[01:33:45] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, Dennis, thanks so much for taking the time. We really appreciate it. Thanks, everyone, for listening.
[01:33:51] Speaker C: Thank you so much for this opportunity. This has been a ton of fun, and it's really great getting to know you, and I wish you, I wish you both the best. This is a cool thing, and I just feel infinitely grateful for the opportunity to talk about this stuff that means so much to me. So thanks. Thanks a million.
[01:34:09] Speaker B: Thank you, sir.
[01:34:10] Speaker A: I really appreciate your ping.
[01:34:11] Speaker B: Bye bye.
[01:34:12] Speaker A: Thanks, everyone. We'll see you when we get back.
[01:34:14] Speaker C: All right, take.
[01:34:18] Speaker A: Welcome back, everybody. We hope you enjoyed that interview with Dennis McMahon. I hope you learned a lot. But as always, we like to end our episodes with our wins and fails for the week. Brad, what's your win? What's your fail?
[01:34:30] Speaker B: Well, I'll do two for both of them. The first is that my wife says she listens to every episode, but she never makes it to the wins and fails. So the fail is maybe we go a little too far. But the win is some of my friends talk about them, which means some people are making it this far. And we love you and we're thankful for you in that. And two little, little things for the wins fails for the week. But just basically saying, I'm human. The fail is just this. Sleep debt is rocking me. And as a knowledge worker, my job is to be a critical thinker, and it's hard to pull that critical thinking from nowhere. And when you're tired, you can't just come in and say, I'm going to do a grind day. They don't exist for me. That's the fail. The win is that Sarah Beth has been telling me for years that her favorite flower are peonies. I didn't know what they were, and she said it a bunch of times, and I ignored it a bunch of times. And then she was mentioning it in January, and I went to the flower store, and they're like, they're not available. They're not available. They'll come out. And they emailed me this week, and I kind of had to do a little, like, bait and switch on, like, hey, I'm taking the car to go just run an errand. And she's a little distracted. Okay. And then I was able to go and buy her her favorite flowers, and it turns out she'd been having a bit of a rough day. And then out of nowhere, for no good reason at all, other than they're available this time of year, I got to give Sarah Beth her peonies, and she will probably never hear this part.
[01:35:51] Speaker A: You get to brag.
[01:35:53] Speaker B: I do.
[01:35:54] Speaker A: That's awesome. Well done. I need to do that now.
[01:35:58] Speaker B: Rob, what about you? Wins and fails.
[01:36:01] Speaker A: So, feeling strong on the wins front this week. We spoke last week about the statistic that basically couples where both partners have one on one parenting time, which, reading between the lines, basically means that when dads take the kids by themselves, because moms always get one on one parenting time, the partnerships are much more likely to last the long run, to go the distance and be stronger, better, happier, healthier.
And so I had been trying to do that, but ive taken on the challenge of one on one fathering with kind of renewed vigor because ive been very nervous about it because I dont have an option to feed Arthur. So I get very nervous about being too far from home. But as I mentioned, hes been in the four month sleep progression. I tend to be a little bit more of a morning person than Laura. And ive been getting more sleep because Laura feeds in the night. So ive been taking him for a couple of hours in the mornings to get let mom get some sleep and has been awesome, like two, sometimes two and a half hours where I can take him and she can sleep. And it's. It's probably saving us from what would otherwise be complete disaster. So I. Not that it. Not that I'm a hero, I'm just very happy that it's happening because we're.
[01:37:23] Speaker B: Allowed to chalk up our wins without being arrogant.
[01:37:26] Speaker A: Happy, happy mom is a happy me, so I'm good mom with enough sleep is an entirely selfish endeavor on my part. And I did take him for the first time to a coffee shop about a 1015 minutes walk from our house all by myself. He got there, lasted about 15 minutes and then started wailing. So I had to kind of leave and walk back. And Laura was already planning to meet me there. She was just finishing her workout and coming, so it wasn't a big deal, but I made it out, and despite being a little scared, I did it. So that was good for the fails for this week.
Pretty light. Thankfully, on the fails, other than lots of wacky changing things, I haven't quite gotten pooped on, but Arthur's butt is prolific. Sorry, Arthur. It just is. He poops up a storm and we've, you know, I've had to change it in a mall. I've had to change him on the floor. I've had to change him here, there. So I win. Fail. I'm not sure. But all I know is that that's taken up more of my time than I'd care to admit.
And our laundry budgets through the roof because Laura's been trying to bleach everything. It is a. It is a whole ordeal.
So if you're in the same boat, hang in there. I hope it gets better. I don't know.
I presume they don't keep pooping their pants forever.
[01:38:49] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know. I think, I think, I think you got some time. Time to go there. We just got. Anyway. Cool.
[01:38:55] Speaker A: Well, as always, thanks, everyone. If you've made it this far, we really appreciate you. If you have any suggestions for the show, if you want to be a guest or have a guest suggestion, please email us at
[email protected].
[01:39:09] Speaker B: Thanks, everybody. Have a good day.
[01:39:11] Speaker A: Thanks, everybody.
Bye.
