I’m a single dad of three kids. Okay, we coparent, so they’re with me half the time.

…though I’m never not a dad.

This may come as a surprise to younger readers. After all, I remember a highly talked about New Yorker article back when I lived there that was about how annoying kids are in the city.

The pull quote was “miniature butlers.” I admit that’s a hilarious line. But you can put on your big-city pants and fill in the rest.

While parenting is my most important job, there are plenty of things in life I do — and more that I want to do in the present.

And sad to say, eventually our kids leave us.

You need something to do then besides just retire and play golf. Totally cool if you disagree with that, but you’re probably reading the wrong newsletter.

Kids are truly a blessing.

But besides the many challenges of raising a family, here’s one that I’ve struggled with personally:

It is insanely hard to know what the right balance is between your kids and your own dreams.

Here are some tips on how to drive toward your goals while still being a good excellent perfect parent.

5 Ways to Build While Raising a Family

1. Know the difference between guilt and responsibility.

Sometimes the feeling of guilt is a positive impulse.

It’s telling us how to be a better version of ourselves.

But sometimes that same feeling isn’t productive. It’s a kind of perfectionism.

We want every parent to care for their children responsibly. What we don’t want is for parents to feel guilty that they’re not doing enough even though they are.

Or worse, that they have no right to do things for themselves.

2. Don’t kid yourself about who “this” is for

I’ve personally witnessed plenty of parents who work crazy weeks and are always on their phone who justify their lack of presence with the idea that it’s “all for the family.”

Ultimately alignment within yourself and with your family is what will produce sustainable, long-term happiness.

So be honest with yourself about why you’re doing the things you’re doing.

Are you trying to be a billionaire so you can cure cancer and so your great grandkids don’t have to worry?

Or are you trying to afford a divorce, buy a yacht, and get re-married to a 20-something model?

Say the answers out loud to yourself.

Adjust as needed.

3. Stick to clear boundaries

Yep, I said the “b” word.

This one is so obvious these days, yet so many of us aren’t good at it.

This breaks down into two clear divisions: work and family.

PS. To be clear, I’m assuming that if you’re building something, you don’t have time for anything but these two. Some people apparently do it successfully, but my own take is that most who attempt to do 3+ areas of life in a serious way are fooling themselves.

Double PS: Sure, you go to the gym. Okay, you have a spiritual practice. But I’m talking REAL investments of blood, sweat, and tears.

Work

Let’s start simple: What are your working hours?

Where does that happen?

Is the door closed? Under what circumstances can you be interrupted?

How are various logistics handled with the other parent (assuming they’re in the picture)? And how often do you allow contingencies to change that arrangement?

Are your phone notifs on? When do you pick up?

In a way, this category could be labeled the “Anti-Family” bucket. It doesn’t sound great, but a boundary implies keeping something out.

I’ll say this bluntly even though I don’t think it’s logically debatable: In order to build something, you need to keep family out.

Out of your space.
Out of your time.
Out of your mind.

For large blocks of time.

Family

For the sake of equivalence, we could also call this one the “Pro-Family” bucket.

This is where we keep work out. Yet we’re also trying to do something better than that:

We are trying to invest more in family than some sort of default.

So when is your family time?

Do you do dinner together? What about breakfast and lunch on weekends? Under what circumstances and how often (max) do you allow yourself to skip those?

I could probably write a whole newsletter about this topic, but you get the picture.

4. Track your inputs

I used to think of progress as bouncing from result to result, with projects and initiatives being the work in between them. For my fellow Wall Street escapees and any math nerds, let’s call this the stochastic view of the creative process.

Now I view building things as more plodding (continuous). It’s really about the inputs.

This is why people say things like “trust the process.”

Counterintuitively, this is especially important in innovative fields, where the returns are highly probabilistic in nature.

Someone in a very risky domain could feel a ton of anxiety everyday because there is no playbook for something zero to one.

Except there IS a playbook.

In fact, there are a zillion books written on how to start a risky venture. One of them is literally called “Zero to One.” And at least 50 of them are pretty damned great.

Just because there’s a playbook doesn’t make success certain, of course. Nevertheless, innovation is a process.

To generalize heavily, you need to find a problem, validate it with a bunch of people, build a product, market it, deliver it, service customers, learn, and repeat.

If you have a thriving business and metrics, you should absolutely improve those.

But the process above still mostly applies.

And you still have to come to work every day and put in the time.

If you’re just starting out, I recommend just tracking hours. Keep it simple!

You can get more complicated after that, but I still think inputs should be a primary measure of your personal contribution.

As a founder/CEO or other wear-many-hats person, it is highly unlikely that you can design an output metric that:

a) is directly attributable to you (not your team, not market dynamics),

b) is applicable to the wide array of projects you work on (e.g. marketing vs. strategy vs. HR vs. operations), and

c) can last over time.

The reason I’m making such a big deal out of this for people with families is this:

You will lie to yourself about how many hours you’re actually putting in.

I speak from experience.

Do you want to put 40 hours in per week? Or 10 scattered throughout the week and with frequent distractions?

I’m sure many of us ambitious people want to put in 80(!). But regardless, if you don’t track it, it’s probably far less than it should be — especially if you also have a day job.

You may be extending goal achievement by years without even knowing.

No matter how clever you are, results take work. Work means hours. Track them!

When Alex Hormozi was starting out, he worked on his own stuff from 5am to 9am and then from 5pm to 9pm. His day job was in between. But that’s 8 hours per day on his own thing!

Note: This example applies to more than venture-backed startups. E.g. You can be apply it to product management, engineering, design, fashion, fine dining, etc.

5. Keep your eye on the prize

Spoiler: The prize is the journey.

Enjoy the ride, and try to involve your family in the vision without boring them or stressing them out.

I’m sharing what I’m doing with my kids. They ask questions, and they can see that I’m happy.

Don’t make yourself an island.

…unless that island has your yacht, a billion dollars, and that 20-something model 😉 

🌊 All the way wet

(aka the footnotes)

Speaking of Alex Hormozi, this video is super great if you haven’t seen it. It’s where I saw him share his schedule early on.

Coda

Somehow I missed that there was a recent remake of “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.”

The reviews aren’t great, though.

Outro

“Life doesn’t need a soundtrack. Life is a soundtrack.”
—Sri

I love me some Little Dragon. This is a new release:

Cheers

Find me at thewarriorpoet.com and on LinkedIn.

Get unstuck, and crush it. Double period.