how entrepreneurship has made me a better father

Summary

I did not expect entrepreneurship to make me a better dad. it did. the same things that work in a business work on a kid. four lessons crossed over.

1. mindset. teach kids positive self talk. catch the anxiety loop early. the script in their head at 8 becomes the script in their head at 38.

2. praise effort, not outcome. Carol Dweck’s Mindset and Angela Duckworth’s Grit say this in detail. I tell my son: I don’t care about the grade, I care that you tried hard. he is starting to believe it.

3. financial literacy. my kids sit in on age-appropriate money conversations. no mystery around income, expenses, decisions. they grow up understanding the lever instead of being scared of it.

4. leadership. parenting a pre-teen is leadership. clear expectations, follow through, hold the standard, give them room to fail and recover. all the stuff that builds a team builds a kid.

I was a worse dad as an employee. structure and ownership made me a better one. try harder.

Transcript

introduction to applying entrepreneurship lessons to parenting

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. What have I learned from entrepreneurship and how do I apply it to fatherhood and being a father or parent? If you’re not a father, if you’re just a parent in general, things that you can apply from entrepreneurship to your kids, lessons I’ve learned.

But before we get into that cool new call to action for you. So if you follow me on Instagram, I’m at EO3 underscore fit. So EO3 fit. You can find me Jerred Moon. Take a screenshot of this podcast or any podcast from the better human business podcast that you’ve listened to any episode, screenshot it and tag me on Instagram.

call to action: engage with jerred moon on instagram for a chance to receive a free sticker

If you do, of course I will share the story, but then I’ll also message you and say, Hey, I want to send you a free try harder sticker. I ordered so many of these stickers and I want to ship more. I ran out really fast and now I have to order more. I just got more in. So now is a good time for me to ship some more stickers.

So again, the job here for you is easy. You screenshot any better human business podcast episode, share it on Instagram as a story, tag me in that story so I can repost it. And after I repost it, I will message you and be like, Hey, where can I ship you your free sticker? And that’s it. Now let’s dive into fatherhood and entrepreneurship for me.

So things that I’ve learned one, this is not about, the first thing I want to say is this is not about being a father and being an entrepreneur and juggling those things. I’ve talked about that in the past, I’ll probably talk more about that in the future, but what I want to talk about is what I’ve really learned and how I’ve applied it to parenting and fatherhood.

discussing the importance of a positive mindset in parenting

So the first thing is mindset. I’ve had some recent episodes about how I’ve changed my mindset and I don’t want my kids to end up with the same kind of mindset that I had with scarcity, fear, anxiety, all those kinds of things. And I feel like when I’m in those natural states, because I’m not perfect, something I have to work on constantly, it seems to rub off on them easier.

I think negative mindsets seem to rub off on kids way easier than positive mindsets because if I’m ever naturally anxious or anything, I feel like they can pick up on that a lot more than being positive and having that abundance mindset. So the first thing I work on with my kids all the time is just positive self-talk, telling them how they talk to themselves is important and then catching it when they’re negative because I do think that we’re naturally programmed, unfortunately, just my opinion here, that we’re naturally programmed to be somewhat negative and have some anxiety.

Like I think those are, it’s part of human nature. Very few people come out and they’re just like, come out of the womb and they’re just upbeat, happy, positive, no negative thoughts. I don’t think that’s most people. And so the first thing is everything I’ve learned in trying to change and develop my mindset over the years, I’m trying to give to them as much as I can.

focusing on effort over outcome - insights from mindset and resilience literature

Talking about when they’re playing sports or going to school, having the right mindset, talking to them about what try harder actually means and looks like for each and every single thing that they do. For instance, my, I was taking my son, he had a big test today, taking him to school and I was like, Hey, let’s talk about what try harder looks like on this test because the try harder is not, you get the best grade, try harder.

That’s not what it is. I said, here’s how you try hard on this test today. You do your work slowly, you take your time and you check your work. That’s how that would be trying hard on this test. Now if he can do those things, if he can take his time and he can check his work, review it, then he tried hard.

I’m not as concerned about the outcome. I’m just concerned about the effort. And so that leads me into my next thing is that’s one thing I’m always trying to do that I have learned from reading a lot of mindset books. There’s a mindset by Carol Dweck and then also grit by Angela Duckworth, probably the two best parenting books I’ve ever read that aren’t actually parenting books.

involving kids in financial discussions and decisions

So pick those up. If you’re a parent, definitely applied a lot of lessons learned, but really focusing on the effort and not the outcome. Not only with myself, that’s something I’ve learned with myself is not getting too focused on the company being a certain size or growing to a certain level. It’s just, hey, are you enjoying the process right now?

And we can only praise the process. So I think that’s one thing I’ve been really good about is making sure I praise the process with my kids and never the outcome. So hey, you worked hard on this, independent of what the grade was, like I saw you put in the work or hey, you may have lost that game, but you were giving your all in practices.

And that’s all anyone can expect of you. Great work for how hard you tried in the practices. So that’s the second thing I’ve learned is praising the process and not the outcome, the effort, not the outcome. And other things that definitely my kids get a larger dose of than most kids, that is money.

applying leadership skills to parenting

Talking about money, they’re involved in all of our financial conversations really just because Emily and I have a lot of financial conversations out loud in public, if you will, in the house, and they’re allowed to sit around and have those conversations and hear big numbers when we talk about real estate, selling real estate or buying real estate or making business decisions, they’re part of those conversations.

I don’t hide those conversations. I let my kids be in conversations about money. I try to stress to them, hey, this isn’t a conversation that you share with your friends or anybody else, but you’re part of this family. You can know about it because I want financial literacy to be a part of who they are.

So that’s one thing that I’ve really taken into the educational part of what we’re doing as a family. Now, I don’t sit down and educate a lot on money with them, but we do talk about what to do with your money, how you can spend, save, give, all those kind of things. But we’re not getting too into the weeds of finance yet, but they will, before they leave my house, they will understand financial frameworks and how money works and how to make money work for you.

summary and key takeaways on fatherhood and entrepreneurship

That’s going to be a big part of what they learn as they get older in my household. Now the last thing is, what I’ve noticed, the biggest takeaway I have from entrepreneurship is applying leadership into being a parent and being a father. So I got a lot of leadership training in college because that’s all ROTC is when you’re prepping to become an officer in the military, is basically four years of learning how to be a leader.

Then you actually get to put that into practice when you’re on active duty and now as a leader in multiple different companies, actually applying leadership and communication. What I found was I’ve tried reading parenting books in the past, like about specific things, just all this crap, right? There’s so many parenting books out there that teach you how to raise your kids and stuff and I very quickly started to ignore all of those books.

I was like, no, I’m just going to show my kids that they’re loved, there will be discipline, I’m probably harder on my kids than most people, and when I say harder on, we have pretty high standards for everything, for behavior, how they treat each other, how they treat their sister, how they treat their brother, all those kind of things.

We have really high standards and we don’t let a lot slide. To be honest, it’s very taxing on Emily and I to parent that way, to have these high standards, but I think that it’s important. But what I’ve realized is the more I’ve worked on my leadership, the better parent it has made me. So every leadership book that I read, every time I learn how to become a better communicator, it’s awesome for business, but it’s even more applicable as your kids get older.

Because I think if you can get through the young kid stage, which my oldest kid right now is about to turn 12, I’m talking about the younger years, the infant-toddler thing, I’m sure there’s some parenting strategy that people might need help with or whatever in those ages, but ultimately, if you can get through those stages, and I think the secret, the whole secret, if you have young kids like that, the secret that I found is make sure they sleep enough, don’t feed them too much sugar or food coloring, and don’t let them be on screens that much.

Like those big three things, they go a long way. Now, I’m not going to get in fights with anybody about that, that’s just in my experience, when we’re on top of those three things, our kids are good, behavior is great, but that’s about as much as I have to give you for the young kid status. And they start to get a little bit older around age eight or nine, I really feel like leadership comes into play.

And so being a good leader, being a good communicator really becomes a very important part of what you’re doing, I think it’s going to become even more important part as I go into the teenage years with my kids. And so I think being prepared as a leader, and the experience I have there has really helped me be a good father.

And I think focusing on leadership is way more important than people realize, because I’m sure I could pick up some random book about how to parent teenagers or whatever, I’m not reading that crap, I’m just going to try and be a good leader, I’m just going to show my kid that he’s loved, I’m going to communicate with him and be open and honest, and try to be the best leader for him that I could possibly be.

Like in this family, that’s my only goal, and it’s been working out so far. Now I’m not saying I’m perfect as a father, and I’m not saying my kids are perfect and anything like that, I’m just saying here’s what I’ve learned, is focusing on these couple of things. But one thing is for damn sure, is that parenting is not easy, and the second you start to slack off is the second your kids are not headed down the right path.

So what do you have to do to be a good parent and entrepreneur? Well, you have to try harder.