fatherhood and business, 3 ways to avoid falling behind

Summary

raising kids while running businesses isn’t a balance problem. it’s a friction and standards problem. three rules I’ve kept across three kids and multiple companies.

1. eliminate friction in advance. workout clothes laid out the night before. tomorrow’s coffee set up tonight. the first decision of the day already made. friction is where good intentions go to die, especially when you’re sleep-deprived.

2. mind your content consumption. the loudest business advice on the internet comes from people who don’t have your life. childless 25-year-olds optimizing for a different game. filter ruthlessly. the advice that scales is the advice from people whose family and values look like yours.

3. set personal standards and hold them. not goals. standards. “I work out 5 days a week” is a standard. “I’m home for dinner” is a standard. standards don’t move when the week gets hard. that’s the whole point.

high performers in both roles aren’t doing more. they’re doing the same things every day with less friction and tighter standards.

Transcript

introduction to the challenges of parenting and entrepreneurship

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey.

So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. So today it’s about fatherhood and business and three ways to avoid falling behind. This is the better human business podcast. I’m Jerred Moon and I have three kids. So I have a 12 year old, I have a 10 year old and I have a six year old.

They’re all going up and you know, one age this year, very, very soon. I’m about to have a seven year old and a 13 year old in a very short amount of time. But here’s the deal. They all came into my life at very different time periods. Okay. William, who is my oldest, came into my life when I was in the military, I was an officer in the military and it was great.

strategies for eliminating friction to enhance daily productivity

In all honesty, it was great. Even though there is some craziness to being in the military, what the military gave me was the ability to compartmentalize my life. And so I was able to just be fully present when I was home. And then when I was at work, be fully engaged at work. And sometimes things I was working on at work were secret or top secret.

So I actually wasn’t even allowed to have my phone. It was some of the most present, uh, work or, you know, cut off work from any distractions I’ve ever had. And I really enjoyed it. But then likewise, the flip side to that was when I was home because I wasn’t able to be connected or anything, I was just fully, I didn’t think about work.

I didn’t want to think about work, none of that. I focused a lot when I was there and when I was home, I was home. That was it. And it made a really great, uh, you know, time for when William was a baby. Now Graham, my middle was born in between the transition phase. I was leaving the military, becoming a full-time entrepreneur.

importance of mindful content consumption and its impact

And I’m not going to lie. That is a blurry timeframe for me. I was there. I was absolutely there. I worked from home, but I wasn’t as present as I could have been. My mind was always racing on what to do because I was in the survival stage of business. And when I look back on it, it’s not, it’s not justifiable to say, well, that’s just what will, what was required at the time.

I’m okay with, with the trade-off, but I feel like I just didn’t know how to handle myself to achieve what I wanted to achieve. I didn’t have the right mindset at that time. And so I didn’t handle things to the best of my ability. And that’s part of the reason I’m doing this podcast today. Now Eleanor was born while I had already seen some success as an entrepreneur, there was still stress, but not as much stress, not as much pressure.

I wasn’t trying to get things off the ground. And so her, I was again, more present, probably somewhere in the middle, the most present with William, the least present with Graham, and then in between with Eleanor, just because entrepreneurship in and of itself is a beast that takes a toll mentally.

the role of setting personal standards in achieving balance

And it’s hard to ever turn that switch off. But here’s the deal. I did the best that I could at the time, but I definitely could have done better. And like I said, that’s why I’m doing this podcast today. So I’m going to talk about the three things that I’ve learned that I have to learn. I had to learn to maintain being a high achiever in the business side and also really prioritizing my relationships, uh, in my family.

So the first thing is eliminate friction. Okay. You’re not failing because you’re lazy. You’re failing because there’s too much friction in your life. Like if you want to work out in the morning, you need to lay your clothes out the night before it may sound so small that it’s silly, but you have to, if you are, if I’m going to be shooting content today, the camera needs to be set up and ready to press a button.

I don’t need 20 minutes to look for all the cords and all this stuff. It just needs to be ready. I need to plan my meals. I need to use my calendar. I need to get ready for the marathon of life because it starts and it doesn’t really stop. So eliminating friction is one of the biggest things and eliminating friction just comes from planning and preparation.

recap and final thoughts on maintaining balance between parenting and business

Like I spend the last hour of my day prepping for tomorrow because going back to the workout example right now, my schedule is shifted and I’m working out at 5 a.m. I love working out. I don’t love working out at 5 a.m. It’s just different. It hits different. The intensity is not the same, but it’s what I’m doing right now.

And here’s the deal. If I don’t lay my clothes out, if I don’t have my water bottle ready, if I haven’t already decided what the workout is, either it’s on my phone or written on the whiteboard, the chances of me succeeding in doing that workout have plummeted significantly. If my alarm goes off the next day and none of those things are prepared and it might sound like small things, but it’s just enough friction to stop me from doing it.

It has nothing to do with being lazy. I might be like, well, if I try and like, I don’t know where my shoes are right now. So like I’m either having to turn on lights or like whatever to look for them. I’m waking people up when I really shouldn’t be or I’m, you know, slamming drawers and waking up my wife when really she doesn’t need to be woken up at 5 a.m.

Like I’m trying to be polite as I’m going through this stage, but it’s just enough, right? So it’s like, well, I don’t want to, I don’t want to wake people up. I don’t want to like, uh, you know, put them, put them out. I don’t want my schedule and to, to, uh, have them wake up early when maybe they didn’t want to.

Right. And then time-wise, like if I’m doing all of these things, like let’s just remove that. Say I’m able to be a Ninja and pick up, you know, get all those things without making a sound, which not gonna lie. You know, I have, I have some of those skills, uh, it, it might just add enough time friction to where I can’t really get the workout that I want.

I’m like, okay, I’m writing it on the board. I’m filling out my water bottle. I’m finding the clothes that took 15 minutes, 15 minutes I didn’t have, and now the workout has to get cut short. And now I’m just really not happy with how that whole thing went down. So eliminating friction just takes a lot of preparation.

This goes from that first thing from like prepping the night before to knowing exactly how the workout’s going to go to what you’re going to eat that day to what dinner is to how you’re going to help your kids out with whatever they need help with. All of those things you need to eliminate as many friction points as you can.

And this is how you’re going to be able to take care of yourself while having kids and trying to run a business. You eliminate as much friction as possible. That way, everything you roll into is just effortless. It, there’s, there’s nothing other than you deciding to do it. There’s nothing going to be hindering you from getting it done.

And that’s a game I can play all day. If everything’s just set up for me, I just have to walk into it, do the work. I don’t, I’ll do a hard workout. I don’t care about that. It’s all the other little things. As funny as that sounds, it’s all the little things that can slow me down or stop me. And that’s what you need to do.

Eliminate friction. You do that through a lot of planning. The second thing is mind your consumption. And I’m really talking about content here. Whether you’re consuming stuff on Tik Tok, Instagram, uh, you know, newsletters, whatever, wherever you’re consuming content, uh, you need to make sure that you are listening to people who are in alignment with your values and what you want out of life.

Because here’s the thing. I won’t take advice on productivity or mindset from people without kids. And I know that there are people without kids listening to this. I’m not throwing any shade. You’re a smart person. I could learn plenty from people without kids. I’m not saying anything like that. I’m just saying there’s a difference.

There’s a difference when I get off work and my day is planned from the, or my evening is planned from the second I get off work until the second I go to bed. That’s people without kids that don’t necessarily have that. And I’m not, you might, again, I’m not, I’m not trying to like pretend, but like I’ve been in that I’ve had, I’ve not had kids before I’ve been married.

Right. Like I, and I’ve been single. Like I know how all these stages work and I understand how much time you actually have. Even if you think you don’t have time. So I’m not going to listen to people who don’t understand it. Right. Because once you have kids, you realize something, your kids are the only point, right there.

You can forget content. You can forget legacy, forget your business. The longest lasting impact I’ll have on this world is in the hearts and minds of my three kids. I owe them everything and they owe me nothing. That’s the whole game. And once you feel that way about your family, you realize, Hey, I don’t need to be taking advice from somebody on productivity or how I need to burn the ships or do all this other crap when they don’t really understand what it’s like to be me.

So here’s the deal. The only reason I say this is because I got caught up, caught up in that on a long time until I realized I’m like, Oh wait, this all or nothing mentality, these productivity tips, these mindset ideas are all coming from people who I respect, but ultimately don’t live the same life as I do.

So I’m not going to try and compare or, or emulate them because I just actually can’t because I want to focus on my family. That’s something that I want to focus on. So setting yourself a standard is, is what I’m going to get into. But ultimately you have to decide who you’re going to get advice from, like what you’re going to consume, which content you’re going to listen to, all that kind of stuff.

But ultimately you have to know, is this person more like you or less like you? And is it even possible to live how they suggest? The third thing is setting the standard. So success as a parent comes down to one thing and that is your standards. I’m really big on standards. If you’ve been listening to this podcast, you understand that, but are you home for dinner every night or not?

Are you glued to your phone or fully present? Is it one, three, five or seven workouts a week? Do you complain about challenges or embrace discomfort in front of your kids? Are you yelling or are you staying calm? The question is, what is your standard? You need to set it and stick to it. I don’t really feel like adults do this.

I don’t know why, but setting your standard, a standard is something that you live up to. You can not meet a standard. A standard can be unmet, but you should have the standard. You shouldn’t just be going around not knowing like, ah, yeah, sometimes I’m on my phone a lot around my kids. Sometimes I’m not.

What’s the standard about for that? Like for you set your own standards, your rules, a lot of people feel like when they become an adult, right? They don’t have to follow any rules. They can do whatever the hell they want, but you need to set your standards. That way, you know, if you’re living up to the life that you want, when we don’t do this, that’s where mediocrity creeps in on a lot of parents.

The mediocrity comes from not having a standard. It’s like, and you know what I mean by mediocrity. I mean like, okay, you used to work out six days a week. You had kids. Now you work out once and I get it. It’s difficult to find the time, but what’s your standard? If your standard is, well, at a minimum, my standard is I work out three times a week.

Yeah. Six would be nice, but three is my minimum. That’s the standard. Do whatever you have to make this, make sure that you can uphold that standard and it’s non-negotiable. That’s what you’re doing. Do whatever you have to, to make sure whether it’s wake up early, stay up later, whatever it is, when you set the standard, you have to make sure that you stick to the standard.

And that’s it. You can be a fully present parent and a high achieving entrepreneur. I didn’t manage that to the best of my ability early on, but it is possible. It takes an uncomfortable level of preparation and execution. You have to be twice as efficient as everyone else. I’m sorry. That’s the game.

If you’re a parent, that’s just what you have to do. Like in a lot of people don’t get this right there, they’re shitty parents with massive businesses. They don’t get it. They’re employees with kids, but they don’t fully get it because they can turn it off and you can’t. And sometimes I envy that.

I envy the W2 employee who can turn it off at the end of the day when I can’t ever. But I also know I’ve been called to this life because doing both well, being a really high achieving entrepreneur and a really good parent, it takes every bit of who I am and I’m here for it. This is what I want, but it takes everything I’ve got.

And that’s what you have to know. You have to know if you want to avoid falling behind as a parent in your business, you have to give it everything you’ve got. That’s it. I mean, there’s no, uh, you know, coasting, there’s no leaving it up to chance. There’s no like having no standards like you will get eaten alive by this life.

If you do not do these things, you have to plan, you have to prepare. You have to be mindful of what’s going into your brain. You have to set the standards. You have to stick to them. And if you can do all of those things, you will be a lot better off than had you not done any of them at all. And that’s just my two cents.

All right. As we wrap it up here, I do want to urge everyone to go check out or sign up for the newsletter if you have not already. So you can go to my website, jared.com, J E R E D.com. You should also be able to click a note or a link in the show notes if you want to just go straight to it and you can see my newsletter, click a button or find it in the menu.

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There is a free version of this course coming out and a paid version of the course, but it’s only going to go out to newsletter subscribers. So make sure you go sign up, go to jared.com, sign up for the newsletter and we’d love to have you, but that’s it. Try harder.