Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the dad EO 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, Robernett. And with me, as always, I'm Brad Bickerton. This is a podcast about modern fatherhood and how it blends with business leadership. On today's episode, we're going to start with some anecdotes from the week on dads and business. Then Brad and I are going to talk about one of my favorite books, bringing up Bei Bei and all the lessons we've learned about parenting through that. And then, as always, stay tuned to the end to hear our dad wins and dads fails for the week.
So, Brad, how are you? How's Theo? How's business?
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Well, first off, let's welcome everyone to episode one of season two. No, it's not.
I was wrong.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: It's episode two of season two.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: That's okay. Keep it going.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Leave it in. Yeah, why not? Leave it in.
Things are good around here. Theo is just crawling around like crazy, and that's tons of fun to see and watch. He's starting to be a little more interactive with other kids at the playground. Just kind of. He notices them and tries to go to them. So there's a lot of fun stuff happening there. And we watched this Netflix show called babies, and there's this one that a woman found us. Revolution. We always thought babies grew slowly and linearly, but it's not true. They won't grow at all for six days, and they'll grow overnight. And while we now know that scientifically is true, it's always that guessing game for Sarah Beth and I. Did he grow overnight? I think he did. And we're usually wrong. So that's just a ton, a ton of fun. Yeah. Enjoying all that and really still living that life of. There is no schedule. He's just, you know, some days he wants to go down at 830 and then wake up at 830. Other days, other things, we've pretty much given up on trying to get them up as specifically at 07:00 we tried that for a week and a half, and just, no, no wins. Just. Just all fails there.
I wanted to share an anecdote. One of the things that I'm talking to when I talk to leaders is why it's just different being a leader than being anyone else. And in some ways, it's kind of like being a dad, because nobody sees the work you're doing.
Nobody knows what's going on behind my eyeballs, between my ears. Or they see the effort of the work and the things that I try to do and I just fail at, or the service that I give to the family that isn't noticed, because that was the whole point. Nobody noticed. But the story that I give leaders, that they often, they like the story, and I've practiced it a couple times, but being a leader is kind of like waking up at 530 when your brain's already working on a problem. You're the only one on earth who knows exists, and that problem could be a really good problem. Like, hey, I think we're really set to get our first enterprise sale. A really bad problem. Hey, our satellite is not radio, is not communicating with us anymore. You get up, you start working on that problem, then you start going about your day, and you do your shower, and you help with the kid, you do breakfast and all those things, and then all of a sudden, you start work, and you're going along and you realize, uh oh, we made a finance error, and this company is out of cash. In eight months, we're dead. Followed by your head of sales comes in and says, we got our biggest sale ever, we need more cash, followed by, you didn't actually make a financing problem. Somebody made a problem in excel, a person you've never even met, and that you now have fixed it.
Then you go to lunch. That's what it's like to be a leader and to be an entrepreneur and to be the person in charge. You do two days, you do a full day's worth of work and stress and ideas and everything before lunch. Then you have your second day, and some people even have a third day.
So that's a story that I've told on stage a couple times. I thought I'd tell it here. But the reason thats in reference not necessarily to the dad side, but to the business side. I have one of my clients. They literally, literally had their satellite launched on a falcon nine rocket last Monday, and it was cool. Well, I reached back out to them on Thursday to see what was going on. Neither of them had really slept in four days, because the radio wasnt working. So theyd effectively launched a brick. And how do you solve for that? Its a husband and wife duo, and theyre very smart and very hardworking. And what they ended up doing, kind of like this, two days, they just. Every day they said, okay, what's our thesis? What are the potential problems? How do we test it? How do we solve for it? How do we keep moving? The very first problem they had was the satellite was looking for the sun. That's how it orients itself. And so it kept spinning to the right, trying to find the sun, because that's how it does it. But every time it would spin to the right, it would start spinning faster. Well, eventually the thing would spin too fast and fail. And today we're able to get just enough radio communication to it to tell it not to stop looking for the sun, just to alternate between turning left and turning right.
And they did that. And then the next day, another problem and another problem and another problem. And so that's how I talk to people on the coaching side and friends who are in business and the boards I'm on. But I can't help but relate that back to dadhood so often that just you're just working a problem, a new thing comes at you, and your job is just to be there and take charge of what you can take charge of. Help out with the things that are happenstance and out of your control. And in the end, just all know you're doing your best. And that is, by definition, your best. So that's my anecdote and my story and something I thought I'd share.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: Appreciate that, Brad. And I know where that lands for me right now these days, is something you've said a lot, is that that's kind of hitting home for me right now is in a different way. Fatherhood isn't nearly as complex. Right. It's literally not rocket science. It's like, usually almost the exact opposite. It's like, can I stand here and bounce?
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Repeatedly for an hour so he doesn't cry. And I'm definitely in that grind right now. And I've said it over the last couple episodes is like, I'm getting more tired, I'm falling into the grind. And I'm realizing that, yeah, like, the kind of enigma of my son is constantly changing.
But the solution is never something crazy complex. It's always some new version of the same hard work of holding, cuddling, walking with, rocking, shushing. And it's exhausting in its own way.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: There's a good book out. Simon Sinek, the infinite game.
And just part of the reason why I pushed longevity and sustainability in work environments so hard, because most of the real goals at the leadership level are five to ten year goals, even their financial goals. And you can't get to that five or ten year mark if you break down. And you and I talk about this on the podcast quite a bit, but daddyhood is also an infinite game. And, I mean, maybe it's not. Maybe kids leave at 18. You could quibble with me on that. But at right now, period, it's forever, and it's changing and getting used to that. Building that muscle of I'm forever a dad is pretty great, but it's also.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Yeah, my colleague's got four kids, the oldest of which is 32, I believe. So a little younger than me.
And he was like, yeah, it doesn't end like sometimes. Sometimes the 32 year old needs more help than anyone than the 16 year old. It's like, okay, so, yeah, it really doesn't end.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: So that's my anecdote and my story. And, hey, all the other dads out there, we get it. We're tired, too. And longevity is just such a big thing. Take care of yourselves. Be proud of yourselves for the good work. Maybe don't ask for people to tell you to be proud of yourself for the good work. But we here, we're proud of you, our listeners and viewers, because we know that while we might be second fiddle to mom, it's still a lot for us. And, Rob, please tell me some things. What's going on there? I know you're tired in the grind, but how's little Arthur? And how's. How's little net capital? And how's little Rob? What's. What's going on?
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So, like I said, little Rob's tired. Good news here. So, on the work front, I definitely feel like I'm hitting my stride a couple of weeks back now, feeling more energized, feeling like I'm back in the groove. And a pleasant, not surprise, but pleasant confirmation is that a lot of those things that I spent time thinking about and percolating on that kind of end of pregnancy and when I was out on parental leave, that's the stuff that's energizing me, and I'm getting some of it put into place, changing the way we do certain things, trying some new brainstorming strategies and things like that. Some recommendations I read out of a book, and that's really energizing to me, and I'm liking that time away is producing some early signs of fruit, which is great. So that's really exciting. On the dad front, it's a wonderfully mixed bag. Arthur's been so great the last 24, 48 hours. He actually really started to be happy and giggly and smiley. Still not smiling directly at us. It's still close, but definitely this change in mood and interaction with the world, which is so cool to see. And then, of course, right when we got there, like this morning, he woke up, he was really kind of happy. Just like, chilling in his cot kind of happy boy. But this morning we had to go get him his vaccinations. And so we've got this great mood that we're, of course, going to completely ruin.
It's a long story because we have the UK system and the US system, we have to figure out which vaccines he's getting, where, when we happen to be traveling right at the moment where he's supposed to be getting his vaccine. So we're getting his vaccines a little early.
We have to do some negotiations with the doctors, all that stuff. Not the most fun, but we got it done this morning, which was great. And just for this, this won't end up in my dad wins and fails part, but it'll be a fun anecdote. So two, we had two vaccines he had to get this morning. One was an oral vaccine, and one's like a six in one shot.
So we did the oral one first.
He takes it quite well, and then I have him and he's looking at me and then does the biggest vomit he has done in his entire life. Mouth, both nostrils just full on, all over me.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: This is not milk.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it was just. Yeah, he was not having it. So, of course, like, it gets all over him, all over his clothes, all over me, my, you know, my jacket, my pants, and all over the sling. So it's like, oh, God. Okay. So we basically completely strip him down, get him cleaned. I get myself cleaned up, and then we give it to him again. Thankfully, the second time he took it, and that was good.
And then there was the shot.
So in the UK, they don't do vaccine vaccinations at birth. I know in the US, sometimes they do. You do get a vitamin shot here in the UK. So I had seen Arthur get one stick when he was born, and he handled it well there. He didn't really know what was going on, but it was definitely a dad moment where, like, my job was to hold him and the nurse was like, no, you don't understand. You have to hold him down hard. So I really held him because she didn't want him to kick or flail.
And then he really screamed when the shot went in. But there were two really cool things. One was, it just felt good to be a dad where Laura was sitting right next to me, but she, like, started crying seeing him, or at least welling up, seeing him in that pain. And I kind of got to be the calm force of, like, nope, I've got him. I'm holding him tightly, and I'm not going to. You know, I'm not going to freak out. I'm just. I just know this is good for him, and so it's okay. And then the other cool thing was he only took about a minute to calm back down. You know, I think it was more of a shock and a little bit of pain. But you held him tight, and he kind of calmed right back down, and he was good. And he's been sleeping most of the day now. He's starting to get up and get fussy. And I think we're in for a kind of a really hard 24 hours. But that was a really kind of.
You know, you never like to see your kids in pain, but vaccinations are, in our opinion, very important. And it was good for him to get. And we knew he wanted. We wanted him to get them before he was traveling. And so, you know, to be able to kind of do all of that for him and get it done as a parent was just. I don't know, it was kind of a fun was. I was going to use the word fun, but not fun, but a rewarding experience to go through. So I liked that a lot.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: No, I love that you said calm force. I think that's something that we get to bring because mom and baby are so integrally tied. I mean, literally, their cry hurts mom's soul. And one of the ultimate fails that I have had as a father is I didn't know that 24 hours after baby is born in Colorado, they prick their heel and they have to pull blood out, and then they send it to all these places.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Yep, they did that for us, too.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Well, Sarah Beth had sent me home that night because why should I have me sleep night two on this terrible couch and the anticipation of a lot of sleepless nights and stuff like, take the sleep you that can. So I wasn't there when that prick happened, and that was very rough on Sarah, Bath, followed by, I think it's a week later that we do the exact same thing again. They need the same blood. And Sarah Beth is literally like almost shaking with fear going back in to have a different nurse. And it was in a weird part of the hospital and we didn't really know. She's only one week out of having given birth. And really that was a similar thing I was able to do is be a calm force. You know, I'm not, I'm not telling jokes. You know, I'm not making light of it. I am helping the process along. Yeah. That was beautiful. So, well, well done, dad. On a vaccine vaccination journey, one you'll have.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: Yep, one down. Why don't we take a quick break? And when we come back, we're going to talk about the book bringing up Bebe, talk about french parenting techniques.
All right, everyone, welcome back. So on today's Pod, we wanted to talk about a book that is quite popular in parenting communities called bringing up Baby. It was recommended to me by a couple of friends of ours that had just had a child only maybe a couple months ahead of us. And the author, Pamela Druckmann, is an american woman who lives in Paris, and she is fascinated by the fact that french children can sit through a whole meal and eat what's given to them and be quiet. And so she goes on this quest to kind of discover french parenting styles and what works and what doesn't. And she wrote this quite entertaining book about the subject. And both Brad and I and our partners have kind of read and studied the book and its lessons. And so we figured it would be nice to introduce some of the dads who listen to both the lessons, especially some of the earlier stuff. And also, yeah, just introduce you to the concepts in general, so you might pick it up if you get a chance. So, Brad, I know you and Sarah Beth have kind of looked into some of this. What's exciting to you?
[00:15:56] Speaker B: So the first thing is it's nice to have something that's a reflection on parenting and kind of a bigger scale because there's some books out there that talk about little things to do, especially sleeping techniques. There's books on that, and it's all technique based and in us culture. And then another thing that we've been learning and part of the reason you and I are doing this podcast is our friends who have kids. Over five have said, I don't know, everything's changed already, so we don't know where to go to get those things. And it was nice just to see, well, here's just a story about a different culture, a different view, and take what you like, leave the rest, and it was okay. Right? It's not a pushy thing. The number one lesson that we got that we were able to apply pretty quickly is the eating habits and that french children are exposed to a lot more food in a lot different ways. And turns out they're less picky, less chicken McNuggets in the end. And I know that chicken McNuggets and goldfish will be a part of Theo's life. This is incontroversible. But what we've actually done to apply that I've mentioned on the pod before as well. There's a program called solid starts. I think it's $140 for like a Tome volume of how to get your kid to start eating.
And things I've mentioned before, like you cook cauliflower and then you give it to him on the same day, but in two different ways. One pureed, one regular.
That kind of stuff all really showed up out of Sarah Beth talking to me about this book and then me looking into it a little bit. So that was one piece that I think the French really do do a lot better, is healthy eating habits from the very beginning. And that'll lead to a lot of successes. While I'm riffing on this, I have two boys who I call my nephews, my very good friends from college. They call me Uncle Brad, and they literally, they'll ask for like, one Skittle sometimes, whereas I've seen other kids come to the house and there's a little jar of skittles right out there, and another kid will come and just take a handful of them. Right? And I don't know exactly what happened to Atticus and Isaac along their eating journey, but they love vegetables, they love them, and they eat well. And that's something that's really important to me as we go forward in Theo's journey.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: And I think two parts. So Laura and I have not started our weaning journey with Arthur. We're looking forward to that, even though I know it's going to be a battle sometimes. But the two things that in the eating portion of that book that I found really compelling was one, she reflects on the fact that in France, food is a national, is the pride of the nation.
It is unpatriotic in France to not love food, and that rubs off on their parenting culture. And then the second thing that I think was so kind of obvious to me once it was stated, but never would have thought of it on my own, is she talks about the fact that essentially every taste is an acquired taste.
And she talks about the fact that essentially it can take 510, 20 times of trying something in order to start liking it. And I think what, you know, not to be stereotypical about it, but I think one thing every dad can probably remember is their first beer. And they probably remember that they didn't like it very much.
And I think about that with our kids, every vegetable, every new flavor, essentially, except for, like, sweet milk, is going to be one of these new flavors that doesn't taste very good. And the lesson she tries to convey in the book is like, listen, what Americans do is they try broccoli three times in the same way, and then the baby rejects it three times. And they say, okay, my child does not like broccoli. And in France, what they do is they try it 20 times and they try it in multiple different forms, mashed, pureed, themed, roasted. And they show the different flavors of a single ingredient. And what you get is with that persistence, and she doesn't claim it's easy. She claims it's really hard. But with that persistence, the children will start to learn and take on those new flavors and start to appreciate them. So Brad, and you started weaning with Theo, right? How is that going, Brad?
[00:20:15] Speaker B: So we're just cresting from food as an experiment in play to food as an experiment in nutrition.
And so I would say that kind of maybe we're shooting for 10% of his nutrients to come from food right now. And the other thing that we do, and we learned this from solid starts, too, was introduce food when they're happy and maybe even full already, right. Because we're so wired to, we're trying to solve a problem of hunger in our child, therefore make them hungry enough. It's kind of like the cry it out method for food. Cry it out is let them scream and cry long enough that they're so tired they just fall asleep.
We don't do that.
Talk to sleep later. So where were at on that is the solid starts program will literally help us on Sunday, do our whole grocery list and will give us the foods that he will be introduced to over that week. And im sure that theyre doing very similar to what you are, just without explaining it to us that hell try broccoli 20 times in 20 different ways along the way. Hes really enjoying new foods, but every new food, he always has this startled, I think just what you said, this startled. What is that? And then he'll go back for more. So that process is underway.
It is a messy process.
And the other piece of the salt starts program is to give kids not just pureed food.
That's more of a myth created by the people who want to sell pureed food while we do puree some things. Sometimes he can pick up a piece of chicken that's a drumstick, and he'll just gnaw on it for 20 minutes, and you just let him do it, and he loves it. And nothing other than a drumstick cooked in the oven. No salt, no olive oil.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Go. That reminds me, too. So one thing Laura and I have tried to do in preparation. So one other thing that this book recommends is basically the way the French do it, is every meal is three courses. It's essentially a salad course, a main course, and a dessert. And what they do with kids is they serve the salad course first. So, you know, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a salad in traditional sense. It could be roasted carrots or roasted broccoli or, you know, some other vegetable, but it's a vegetable course. And what you do is you space out your meals, and then the first thing you serve as, as the parent is the vegetables, and you leave it on the plate. And then you go take 15 minutes to cook, to finish cooking the main, and they're like, guess what? When those kids are hungry, they're gonna start picking at, even if they don't like it, they're gonna start picking at those vegetables, and before you know it, they've eaten the whole course. And then you bring out, you know, your chicken with your rice and maybe also some vegetables in the main course, but, you know, you bring out more of the main, and they've. They were so hungry, they ate all their vegetables, and now they've gone on to the kind of easier, quote unquote foods, and then you give them a little dessert. So I think the French treat dessert a little bit like how I think we think Europeans treat alcohol, where you get some of it a lot, so it doesn't feel like this big thing that you've withheld yourself from. So it's okay to have two little bites of a chocolate bar or two little squares of chocolate, because, yeah, you get chocolate all the time. It's just a nice little treat to finish your night versus this forbidden, mysterious item that you really must not touch. And then, therefore, when you get it, you're inclined to binge on it.
So I really like that attitude.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: And it also fits with another thing, that knowing that you have enough and when you know you have enough, I find it easier to switch from a quantity to a quality mind frame. And it doesn't matter if it's in enough clients, it's enough sense of security and love with my wife if it's enough food, but it still requires a mental shift. You still have to pick my brain out of just acquire more. Because there have been times in my life that ive had scarcity, whether its emotional or physical. And thats one of the things that when you dont have enough money for chocolate or for meat, then you binge on big steaks and big chocolate and pulling back and saying, wait a second, that was a story of 20 years ago when Keystone and top ramen was my food love. And so again, just not having scarcity of chocolate or wine can help a kid from day one say quality matters more.
I want to throw the book back at you because there's a lot of chapters in it and you really like the book. Is there something specific you'd like to highlight? Or we can go through a couple of other thoughts.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Again, I recommend the book highly as a reading. I think you said it earlier.
It's definitely one of those books where you shouldn't. I do not believe it's a Bible. I don't believe she has it. All right. I don't believe that it's all perfect and that the French raise perfect children. Um, you know, there's a lot of things about France that I probably wouldn't like my child to, to like. You know, they tend to be, they even talk in the book about how those children can often be sad or depressed and there's a little less vibrancy there that's kind of neither here nor there. Point is, this isn't a viable, they, it's not perfect, but they've got really good lessons. So a lot of the lessons are from where, like, uh, raising older kids. And I'm still in the infant stage. The one infant stage piece of advice that I loved was something she calls the pause. And what she talks about is how french parents weave patients into every aspect of parenting. And in later days, that looks like doing things like teaching kids to bake and baking in the morning, but then not eating the cake until the afternoon. In a conversation, if a child wants to talk to you, you say, hold on, I'm finishing the conversation with Brad. Then I, then I'm going to chat with you. Uh, so there's all of these things built into french culture and french parenting that encourage children to be patient. It's like, I love you, I'm going to talk to you. But something is happening where we have to wait until later. And they talk about how baking is a really good part of that. But also, early on, when a baby's even an infant, they talk about doing something called they that the author labels the pause, which is this idea that if your child, in this case, cries or reacts or is doing something in their crib at night, things like that, the immediate reaction is to pause and observe. And it's not because you think the child is trying to manipulate you, and it's not trying to make them wait, but it's about being an observant parent. So you're going to look at them and go, okay, let me listen. Let me look. Let me see what's going on before I simply scoop them up and put them on my shoulder or back or cry or hug them or something like that. And I found, for me, that's been very valuable because there's a lot of talk out there about how, like, oh, different cries mean different things, and baby's talking. This type of cry means they're hungry, and this type of crime means they're in pain. I don't know if any of that's real, but I do know that when I stop, if Arthur's crying and I just kind of observe him for just 10 seconds, I can often say, oh, you know what? I think he's hungry. I think he's got gas. I think he's got a dirty diaper. And I'm often right, and I'm not even sure I know exactly why I think what I think. It's not, you know, it's not like, oh, I recognize that sound or this thing. It's just, you look at him and you go, I think I understand what's going on here. And that's not to say that, you know, it's about being the perfect parent to an infant and getting it exactly right. Listen, if you think it's a dirty diaper and you change it, it's not dirty, and you end up having to feed them later. It's not the end of the world. But I think that attitude of, first and foremost, I need to get to know my child even when they're three weeks old and aren't really a person to be even known yet, it kind of gives them that human hood of like, I'm going to just, what are you thinking right now? What's going on with you? And I think adopting that pause has been really valuable for me in observing Arthur and getting to know him. And then when I have to figure out what to do to calm him down. I've built up that kind of intelligence and that observation with him, and then what that does later on, according to the book, which I buy is correct, although I haven't done it yet, is things like when a child cries in the middle of the night, instead of rushing and scooping them up, sometimes they're just trying to link their sleep cycles. And if you pause and you don't interrupt their sleep cycle, or you pause and give them time to link their sleep cycles, they'll sleep through the night better and things like that. So this is a long winded rant. You can read the book, and she'll do a better job explaining it than I will. But that's my takeaway from the book that I really liked, was that pause in that leaning towards observing first, reacting second.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Awesome. Thank you for all of that information. And I can't help but think of this on the CEO side and how absolutely vital it is to pause. And there's literature out there, and it's in one of the maybe another Simon Sinek book, that you always want to make sure that you're observing everyone before you speak. And that's why you let everyone else report in at, say, a daily stand up. Everyone else reports in because you observe everyone, see what's going on, see the missing parts where everyone else is just in their own head, in their mind. And so just having that observant look or same thing. When a crisis problem comes at you, the very first step in a crisis is to note that you're in a crisis.
Second step in a crisis is take one step out. And that's similar to what you're saying in this. And it's hard because you want to immediately help baby. But giving them a chance to try, I find that's much easier for me to do than for Sarah Beth. For instance, when he's a little cranky or tired, he wants mom. When we're on our upstairs level, I'll gate the stairs and he'll know where she is. And he's crying because he wants to get to her. I'll let him crawl the entire way because I believe that that is him showing his agency for what he wants, even though I know he wants mom and he knows that I can bring him. He also knows that I'll just walk right behind him as he goes. And she thinks that's me torturing him. And so that's a little bit of a dissonance and a difference there between us. Second thing I want to talk about right now is delayed gratification and basically every study ever says the ability to delay gratification is the biggest indicia of success. Now, your parenting style, house, finances, race, gender, they all fit within this. But truly, when you take a look at people and you say, hey, you know, eat the marshmallow or wait for two old very famous test, that's that, that delayed gratification always plays out longer in life. And I think that's a little bit of what the french pause can also teach the child to do as well, is I am not being left alone and in crisis. I'm being given a moment, and if I'm not having it, dad's right there. If I am having it, if I can solve my crying or indicate to dad to me what theo wants, I am better able to take care and help him. If he just learns, I scream and I get stuff. It's not communication that's not helpful. And another dad lesson that I got, I was actually on a plane and the guy sit next to me and then we're talking. This is way before this podcast, this would have been last April. So we are three months away from baby and this guy, very smart, wise father, and we talked the entire flight. And one of the things he told me is that all three of his kids, two girls and a boy, college, high school age, now they all know one thing for certain, they have to try it once before they can ask dad for help. But he will be right there. And it doesn't matter if it's defending a grade, if it's getting paid for work they did in somebody's yard. It doesn't matter what it is. He'll talk them through it. He'll make them understand it and say, go try. And if you fail, come back.
[00:32:13] Speaker A: I will.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: I will do it with you.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: I will do it for you, but.
[00:32:16] Speaker B: Not until you've tried it once. And he says that that's what's made his kids so successful in life. So all that from the french pubs?
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it's really good stuff. And I think the, the final thing I'll say here is what's so hard in the early days is, you know, that the kids, you know, a two week old or four week old or six week old isn't trying to be manipulative. They're not spoiled. You can't spoil them, at least from everything I've ever heard. And so it's hard to be like, well, I'm teaching you resilience right now, and I'm teaching you delayed education when you're too young. For it. But I think that the. I think the practice of it is important because it's hard to change your habits halfway through parenting. And so I like the idea of it kind of starting again, not with some crazy withholding of help or support or love. It's just taking a second to just let me see what's going on here. I think that's really nice.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Love it. Well, I think that's pretty good. It's a long book. There's a lot in there. And I think we could probably do a two hour podcast just on the book, but maybe this is.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: Oh, for sure.
I feel like the author is a dream guest of mine on this podcast. If we ever get big enough to get her, I would really enjoy that.
[00:33:30] Speaker B: I say we shoot for the moon every time we can.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: Heck, yeah. Well, why don't we take a quick break and we come back? We'll talk about our dad wins and fails for the week.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: All right, everybody, welcome back. And as always, as promised, we will give you our wins and fails for this last week. Things we've done right, things we've done wrong, and things that we are certain that you've gone through as well. But we just wanted to expose it and be vulnerable and be honest, because being a dad ain't easy. And sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you don't. But, Rob, why don't we start off with you? What's some wins and fails for me lately?
[00:34:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So my win for this week happened this morning. If you listen to last, I believe it was last episode. My fail for that week was I had made a mistake on a bus in the morning, asking Laura not to sing nursery rhymes to Arthur. Big mistake. Very big failure. So we had to take the bus in another rainy day here in England. We had to take the bus in to get Arthur his vaccinations. And there were two really cool things. So one is Laura and I had a great bus trip. It was packed bus, rainy day, rush hour in the morning. And we kind of quietly played with Arthur. We chatted with him. We sang him some songs. We were kind of right at the front of the bus, so you could see out the front. And he was just having this great time. He was like this. He loves windows. And hes like, this is the best window ive ever seen. This is the front of a bus. This is great. So we had a really good bus ride. I feel like I redeemed myself. I wasn't awkward at all. I felt great.
And then a second piece of that. So Arthur's now just big enough to be worn front facing. So he's looking out at the world. And I think, as said earlier in the podcast, he's smiley right now and he's just kind of waking up. So he is cute. He's about as small as you can be and still be, like, facing forward. I tell you what, as a guy, like, having him facing forward, walking down the street, so many people, like, smiled at me and were nice to me. People offered me their seats on the bus, which I did once. I wanted to stay standing and kind of keep him moving, but it's just like, oh, this is. The world is a much brighter place when you're totally disarming because you've got a small child strapped to your chest. It's very nice. So I highly recommend it. The whole world opens up to you. Everyone just thinks you're the nicest guy. So that was super nice.
And those are my wins for the week. Like, had a good bus ride and wore him out in public again. I wore him out in public a lot, but it just feels good. On the fail side, I'm going to bring my wife Laura into this because she had probably, at her own admission, the biggest fail of the week. But I don't think it was actually that big a fail. But it caused a lot of angst in the house. So I feel like it's worth bringing up. So I work. Laura's on parental leave. We're getting used to leaving Arthur, like, in his little baby gym for maybe ten or 15 minutes at a time as we, you know, Laura was cooking dinner for us as I was working, basically, Arthur was in his baby gym and threw up, and Laura didn't notice for a few minutes, and she felt horrible. And I'm only bringing this up not because I want to say the fail of the week happened because my wife wasn't watching our child, but I was working. We weren't there. He was fine. He was a happy kid. I came over, she texted me. She was kind of crying and scared that she was being a bad mother. I was able to come over and provide support. That doesn't make me the hero. I think it's just the fail of the week is sometimes you just miss something, and in these early days, it can feel totally crushing to make a mistake, and it can feel like you are just a horrible parent. And I think it's a good reminder. That's why we do these is like, you know what? He can survive a little throw up on him. He'll be all right. And he was fine. He's been totally fine. He's been happy ever since. But that was like the real emotional kind of like the small thing that was not at all traumatic. That was like really traumatic this week. So I thought it was worth worth sharing. But, Brad, how about you? How's your week? What's, what are your wins and fails?
[00:37:39] Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of wins. And you actually helped me remember my fail, which is a little more subtle of a fail. So we'll get to that. But a lot of wins. So on Saturday I swam, and on Sunday I ran. And yesterday I got on the peloton. So I did a sprint triathlon worth of work over three days. But you know what? You got to start there. And that was really, it felt good. I've been doing physical therapy again, so my legs are starting to have desire to move instead of just be kind of knotted in pain. So that's just nice. Taking care of myself is working.
And then the second thing, the big win is I got theo to fall asleep last night, not once, but twice. And so Sarah Beth was working on her book, and I just walk in and she looks at me, no, baby. And I just do kind of like an Elvis kick. And she goes, did you get him down? Yeah, I did. And then about 45 minutes later, he's getting a little fussy. I don't say anything. And I just walk in there and I just hold him a little bit and then I rock him a little bit. And then I put him back. He just sits at a pudding about ten minutes later, fell asleep for another 3 hours. So I got to walk back into Sarah beth and do another Elvis kick. These are the wins. These are the wins, folks. For losses. Ours is a little more subtle, but it's really related to what you're going through right now. Rob, I felt like your loss was really just about you and Laura being tired of and that when youre tired or frustrated, a two out of ten problem can feel like a ten out of ten problem. And thats the thing that I forget is I sleep better than Sarah Beth because shes feeding and shes doing these things. And she has mentioned to me more than once that shes just really tired. And I know it, but I forget sometimes that shes reacting to me out of fatigue, not out of anything else. And it could just be the tone of her voice is a little too much on something, and I just need to be better at having a french pause to say, is she just saying this poorly cause she's tired, or is this a real event and not have a reaction myself instantly. And so that's happened a couple times this last week that I just, I later had to come and apologize because I overreacted to her overreaction to her normal reaction to being tired. So I will seek betterness and forgiveness.
[00:39:55] Speaker A: Just to reiterate, I think that's so it's obvious, but everyone should hear it again and again. Those first couple weeks, months, years, you both, your parent parents, you're going to be tired.
You're going to get mad at each other because you're just tired. It's definitely happened to us more than once. And there's this whole theme of or not theme. There's a whole genre of TikToks or, and, and little reels on social media that's like, you know, we're not the enemy. Like he's the enemy as in the kid and it's a joke. Right. But like, it's as Laura and I have kind of taken that to heart. Like, we're not the enemy. Like he's the enemy.
And it's, and it's, it's important to remember that, you know, you're in it as a team and your guys are going to be tired and it's going to blow up sometimes be and it's.
[00:40:46] Speaker B: Just so hard in the moment.
And one of my flaws as a person is I get in my head and I'm thinking about big, heady topics. Yesterday we were I'm shutting down a company. I'm helping their CEO understand that and message it to the board and work through compensation packages through that. And also, there's another company that's going through a pretty big board change right now. And I'm advising them on that. Those are big, heady topics and I get in them and then Sarah Beth has the gall to try and get me out of my head space so that I can do something to help her.
Whoa, Brad, you're not that cool. Calm down. Be together with the family. Yes. Picking up the drumstick that the kid just dropped is more important than finishing this thought. I just, I was used to being bachelor Brad for so long and unwinding that is a slow process and it's harder when you're tired. But it's also beautiful. There's a beauty in the way that Sarah Beth and I come together and you know, the old phrases, you know, get slow to anger, quick to forgive. And I don't even feel like it's forgiveness. It's more like acknowledging that the reason for the struggle is the enemy and.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: It'S all beautiful, right? It's all growth and it's all for a good cause, which is our kids.
All right, well, I think with that, why don't we wrap up? If you've listened with us this long, we really, really appreciate you. Uh, if you wouldn't mind, please, like subscribe, follow us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. It's super helpful. It really makes an impact for us. And if you've become a fan, make sure you don't miss next week's episode. We're going to have Anthony Franco on the show. He's a six time entrepreneur. He said five exits. He's the father of two girls and he was on Shark Tank, so you're not going to want to miss this one. It's a really exciting interview. And with that, we hope everyone has a great week.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: Have a great week, everyone. Bye.
