Parenting Through the Ages

As a recently empty-nester, I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately on my journey as a parent. So I thought I’d focus this edition of Coach’s Corner on some work/life learnings and approaches that have helped me (try to) sustain my family journey while simultaneously building my career.?

Act 1: The Preseason

It is a bit of a distant memory for me, but I vaguely recall life before kids. Late nights partying at the clubs. Sleeping in. Leisurely weekends. Loads of free time. OK, actually most of that wasn’t actually true for me. The early part of my career was a bit of a grind. Lots of hours in the office. Decidedly non-glorious travel. Late nights crunching data and weekends finishing models. But those years were also full of rapid growth, honing skills and building resiliency. I’m not sure if I’d make all the same choices again, but I do think an important career tip is knowing when it makes sense to really put the pedal-to-the-metal in terms of establishing a strong career foundation and setting yourself up for long-term success. But don’t lose sight of the fact that building a balanded and meaningful life extends well beyond your time in the office.

Act 2: Babies & Toddlers

Gotta be honest… I wasn’t a huge fan of the whole babies and toddlers phrase. The sleepless nights, the tantrums, the boundary pushing. And sometimes it wasn't just me doing these things, but the kids were as well! I learned some life skills from this phase of parenting, many of which have even been useful in my professional life. For example:?

• Communications: It's hard to communicate with little humans that can’t yet speak coherently, so you have to be very intune to non verbal communication and cues to understand their needs and desires. Those same skills can come in handy when “reading the room” or “getting the story behind the story” during business presentations and 1:1s.?
• Working with difficult people: Babies are difficult to manage. They can be whiny, irrational, self-centered and loud. I’m not going to name any names, but these characteristics sometimes manifest themselves in grown-up teams and organizations. So some of the coping and redirecting skills I learned as a new parent have been surprisingly valuable at work.
• Enthusiasm: Toddlers are high emotion, and bring an unbridled joy to every new experience and encounter. They live in the moment. They are constantly learning. They are not bashful. As we grow up, we lose many of these traits (at least most of us do), and that is a shame.

Act 3: Little Kids???

This phase was kind of cool. It is when I got into coaching youth athletics, and honed my skills as a developer of talent, program manager, motivational speaker and problem solver. Some of the key parenting skills from this phase that I try to apply to my role as an Uber leader include:

• Hyper organization: Coaching a youth t-ball team takes a lot of logistical coordination, detail orientation and real-time crisis management. Mastering these skills as a parent and coach has made my job leading a 24/7/365 global operations function seem easy by comparison!
• Managed competitiveness: I like to win. Sometimes I get too worked up in the process. Sometimes that’s not a good look in front of eleven year old players and their parents who are just trying to have fun. Sometimes I need to remember that same thing when I’m talking to my Uber teams.
• Treats!: Nothing motivated my girls soccer team like the prospect of an ice cream party after the game. As adults, we sometimes forget these lessons, and quickly move on after achieving a big goal of making a great team presentation. Don’t forget that adults like ice cream too, and victories in the conference room can be just as meaningful as victories on the pitch.

Act 4: Tweens and Teens??

This phase of parenting was fun, except when it wasn’t. It's the phase where for the first time you start having meaningful and deep conversations with the kids. That’s awesome except when it isn’t. You realize that kids sometimes have bad or non-so-smart ideas that they will stubbornly defend well beyond the point of annoyance. Even worse, they sometimes bluntly point out when you have bad or not-so-smart ideas that you stubbornly defend well beyond the point of annoyance. Here’s some things I learned and apply at work:

• Persuasion: Winning teenagers over to your way of thinking requires an artful and nuanced mix of logic, reason, anecdotes and emotion. Ditto at work.
• Tolerance: Teens make mistakes, and sometimes the best way to help them learn is to let them make those mistakes, pick them up when they fall and provide a bit of light coaching after the fact. But make sure you have guardrails in place so that the mistakes aren’t too catastrophic. Ditto at work.
• Escalations: Although we always encouraged the kids to work things out between themselves, we had no shortage of parental escalations that we had to weigh in on. We tried to listen more than talk, and hoped that we could find win-win solutions. Ditto at work.

Act 5: Young Adults??

This is a new phase for me. My kids are now both young adults living on their own at far-away college campuses. They don’t have to listen to me if they don’t want to. It is a different relationship now. They come to me for advice, not directives. They realize my wisdom and advice is failable when they are dealing with life’s nuanced complexities, and thus that they need to triangulate more and rely on their own instincts. There are many things that they are now much better at than me (e.g., calculus, technology, and beer pong.) I find that parenting in this phase has some parallels to managing highly accomplished senior leaders at work.

I’ll close with my favorite parenting quote from Mark Twain: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in 7 years.”

Want to read more of my musing? Available HERE, with all proceeds donated to The Special Olympics Fund.