EP21: When You Have Choices, Choose Wisely

Interview with Nick Brophy / Bakery Owner, Career Supporter, Wise Man

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Today my guest is Nick Brophy, father of five children, ages 7 to 24. Nick played football at Princeton and the team won the Ivy League championship his junior year. Then he took a traditional path to Wall Street. He loved it and excelled at it for nearly 20 years. His wife Sarah was also enjoying a thriving career. Then they started having kids. In 2013, after adopting their third child, Nick’s wife found out she was pregnant. They were at crossroads. Nick put his hand up to be the Lead Dad and walked away from Wall Street, to the disbelief of friends. The past 9 years have taken him on a journey he hadn’t planned, one that has been rewarding but not without its challenges. Men, society still says, are supposed to be the breadwinners and nowhere is that more true than on Wall Street. Today, Nick is an owner of two bakeries, while his wife Sarah is in her dream job at Uber. Listen to hear how he’s adjusted and thrived.

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Transcript

00;00;05;04 - 00;00;25;10
Paul Sullivan
I'm Paul Sullivan, your host of the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, sublime, strange and silly aspects of being a dad in a world where men often feel they have to hide, or at least not talk about their parenting role. I know this from firsthand experience as the lead dad to my three girls, three dogs, three cats, and, somewhat remarkably, three fish.

00;00;25;12 - 00;00;42;21
Paul Sullivan
I did this all while managing my career and striving to be an above average husband. One thing I know for sure about being a dad is it's not a normal role. You're not doing what dads have judicially done go into work and leaving the parenting to mom or someone else. Nor are you always welcome into the world where moms are the primary caregivers.

00;00;42;23 - 00;01;05;19
Paul Sullivan
But here at the Company of Dads, our goal is to shake all that off and focus on what really matters family, friendship, finance, and fun. Today my guest is Nick Brophy, father of five children ages 7 to 24. Nick played football at Princeton, where the team won the Ivy League championship his junior year. He then worked on Wall Street, taking a very traditional path into the world of finance.

00;01;05;24 - 00;01;25;25
Paul Sullivan
He loved it and excelled at it for nearly 20 years. His wife, Sarah was also enjoying a thriving career in banking. Then they started having kids in 2013 after adopting the third child. Next we found out she was pregnant. They're at a crossroads, so Nick put his hand up to be the lead dad. The past nine years have taken him on a journey he hadn't planned on.

00;01;26;01 - 00;01;45;03
Paul Sullivan
One that's been rewarding, but not without its challenges. Men, society still says, are supposed to be the breadwinners. And nowhere is that more true than on Wall Street today. Nick is an owner of two bakeries, while his wife, Sarah is in her dream job working at Uber. Nick got a lot to talk about here. Welcome to the Company Dads podcast.

00;01;45;06 - 00;01;47;00
Nick Brophy
All right. Thanks for having me.

00;01;47;02 - 00;01;59;25
Paul Sullivan
So start off just, you know, describe your your life as you and your wife were working, and your family was, was growing, kind of growing, you know, quickly at points. What was it like back then?

00;01;59;27 - 00;02;08;18
Nick Brophy
Yeah. So we we got married a little bit later in life as people in New York City tend to do. So we got married. I think I was just about 30 years old.

00;02;08;21 - 00;02;14;02
Paul Sullivan
And that's that's a that's ancient Nick. That's ancient. It's all, you know, aches and pains, everything.

00;02;14;04 - 00;02;44;16
Nick Brophy
In some parts of the country. It is. Right. In terms of getting married. So we we were both on Wall Street, and for a while we had what we like to call. We were doing dual Wall Street income. No kids. And, which was, which is a fun place to be. We got to do lots of things, went out to dinners and traveled when we wanted to, and when we got the idea to, to have a family and we adopted and, our first child was a baby.

00;02;44;16 - 00;02;59;06
Nick Brophy
And, and it changed things, as you know, I think, you know, as a parent, I always said, and maybe you would agree, but going from 0 to 1 kid is the hardest. Yeah. You know, going from 1 to 2, you know, you kind of been there, done that. And you just, you know, there's economies of scale in parenting.

00;02;59;06 - 00;03;15;17
Nick Brophy
So, so 0 to 1 was the hardest. And we we extended our family. Our next child was adopted and she was almost 11 when we got her. So we went from like zero kids to like, you know, an 11 year old within a year, which is pretty, pretty remarkable.

00;03;15;19 - 00;03;19;14
Paul Sullivan
And, and but then and then you kept going, right? You didn't stop that. It's like, you know.

00;03;19;14 - 00;03;20;19
Nick Brophy
I'm like, why.

00;03;20;20 - 00;03;21;25
Paul Sullivan
Quit it too?

00;03;21;27 - 00;03;40;02
Nick Brophy
So, so so we we adopted my my wife had a, some weird thing that happened, which was one of the reasons we adopted was she, she had like a soccer goal tear. And so she was it was caused initially like a stomach flow. And she threw up and she tore her esophagus and had tons of internal bleeding.

00;03;40;02 - 00;03;59;18
Nick Brophy
And and so she was scared to death, to throwing up for years. And so she didn't want to get morning sickness. So that's why we chose that was one of the reasons we chose to adopt in the beginning. And then, and so we finally had a biological child. I guess that was around 2009 or 10, 2010.

00;03;59;20 - 00;04;22;24
Nick Brophy
And, and then, and then we struggled getting pregnant for a while, and we're trying to have some more kids, and we decided to adopt again. And that's when we adopted a daughter. From the same domestically from Vienna. And, and we were with her about two weeks old, Chinese, two weeks old. We we've had her since birth and were there when she was born and brought her home.

00;04;22;26 - 00;04;42;28
Nick Brophy
And my wife's like, you know, I need to talk to you. I'm pregnant. I was like, well, all right. So, eight months later, we had our fifth and, now final child, and, and our life changed just incredibly quickly, you know, going from 0 to 1 as far as, you know, from 0 to 5.

00;04;42;28 - 00;04;47;15
Nick Brophy
And a really short period of time was, it was pretty. It was pretty special.

00;04;47;17 - 00;04;57;16
Paul Sullivan
Did you did you find yourself leaning on some of those old, like, football skills from your Princeton days where you're guarding multiple people as they try as they, you know, come across the line? Yeah.

00;04;57;21 - 00;05;17;15
Nick Brophy
I mean, that's actually a pretty good analogy, you know? I mean, for a while, my wife and I thought, like the analogy we used was like, there's cracks starting to show up in the dam. And like, our fingers and toes were filling in the cracks. And that's what our lives felt like. I mean, we were I remember that day we were on a vacation over what is a vacation?

00;05;17;15 - 00;05;19;13
Nick Brophy
And you have three kids brought a vacation.

00;05;19;17 - 00;05;24;07
Paul Sullivan
And Nick, we don't we don't call that a vacation. We call that family time. A vacation is when you and your wife go away.

00;05;24;08 - 00;05;43;12
Nick Brophy
Yeah. So we started taking family trips, which is the same. So we had a family trip, and, and we just sort of looked at each other and, you know, we were overwhelmed. And that analogy of like, the dam leaking and, and both of our hands were plugging holes and her feet were plugging holes, and there were still leaks sprouting up.

00;05;43;12 - 00;06;06;24
Nick Brophy
And we were just like, what are we doing? And that's that's when, you know, we had a long talk about, you know, how are we going to handle this? You know, we live in this frenetic city with these two kids, and a couple of them have learning challenges. And our daughter, who was at the time a teenager, was really, really struggling with learning and emotional and psychological challenges.

00;06;06;27 - 00;06;27;06
Nick Brophy
And it just like something out of here. And we had we had a long conversation about it. And, you know, given what her career aspirations were versus mine and where, you know, I was in my career versus her. I raised my hand. It was, you know, it was what was needed for our family to take a step back and focus on getting us through that patch.

00;06;27;09 - 00;06;47;12
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, but let's drill down on that a bit, because, you know, before starting the company dad's, I was a business reporter for a long time. I was, you know, you know, young in New York City at one point, as well. And in the life of, you know, a guy working on Wall Street is is pretty fun. It's stressful, there, you know, but it's intense.

00;06;47;12 - 00;07;06;10
Paul Sullivan
And as you, as a former, you know, Division one athlete, I mean, you get that adrenaline rush, and it was, you know what was that like to to give up. How did you think, like or. Okay, you know, the family comes first. You know, I want to support my wife's career, but it's it's pretty fun for those who don't, who don't know.

00;07;06;10 - 00;07;24;27
Nick Brophy
What it's like to work on wall. You know, I mean, I think athletes gravitate towards the training side. I was on training, so so I think athletes gravitate towards that just of like there's a lot of adrenaline, you know, every day is like a new adventure. And, and, and I like my job. It was intellectually stimulating, especially when I was earlier in my career and I was trading.

00;07;24;27 - 00;07;50;25
Nick Brophy
I was like, you know, we're trying to find a better way to build a better mousetrap with derivatives traders and try to create interesting ways to money to make money. And that was fun. You know. I, I, I was very close to I lost one of my best friends on nine, 11, and, and I sort of vowed to myself at that point, like, you know, life is short.

00;07;50;28 - 00;08;11;26
Nick Brophy
I don't want to do this forever. And I just maybe I want five more years. And it took me a few more than those five years to get out of it, but I did I did sort of make that assessment, and it was because I was really impacted by what happened to me. And I was right. I mean, I worked right across the street on that 215 busy street and World Financial Center, and I was on the phone with him after he worked at Cantor Fitzgerald.

00;08;11;26 - 00;08;29;02
Nick Brophy
I was on the phone with him, as you know, after the plane set and, and impacted me. And, and so I sort of made about myself that I was going to get out of it and focus on what's important in life. And it took me longer to do it than I would have expected. Because it's hard to walk away, you know, there's an ego component to it.

00;08;29;02 - 00;08;48;28
Nick Brophy
It's huge. You know, you you you feel like you're the master of the universe. You're getting paid lots of money. You're paying, you know, as a manager, you're paying people lots of money. And the ego gratification that goes with all of the stages of that career, was hard to get over. It took me it took me a couple of years.

00;08;48;28 - 00;09;06;17
Nick Brophy
I mean, I when I say that every time somebody gave me a phone call, you know, within a couple of years of my hanging up my hat, you know, I got excited. You know, I might not be like, in a job that I would have been excited about two, three years ago, but, like, oh, wow, this person still wants to talk to me.

00;09;06;17 - 00;09;19;12
Nick Brophy
I'll talk to them. I might be interested in going back. And it took me. It took me a while to sort of unwrap all that and figure out why was I interested in that phone call. Thank you for, you know.

00;09;19;15 - 00;09;37;10
Paul Sullivan
Some people may not know this, but you know, the euphemism on Wall Street, when somebody is is let go either for, for headcount or because they've done something like mind Bendingly egregious is they're going to go spend more time with their family. And you read that in the press release like, that's that's math bullshit. No way. What would he really do?

00;09;37;16 - 00;09;53;29
Paul Sullivan
But that's actually what you did. And so what was your reaction among, you know, your your your friends, your your, your college friends, your Wall Street friends, you know, the people who were your buddies before you. You met Sarah and got married and started having kids.

00;09;54;01 - 00;10;24;00
Nick Brophy
You know, so I think I I'm a pretty genuine person. I'm a straight shooter. And, you know, I went into my boss at Citibank, you know, and he's a great guy. And I just said, listen, you know, we're struggling with our daughter like it is touch and go. She's having a lot of negative thoughts like, somebody needs to be around or I can't do my job like you need me to do it and focus on that.

00;10;24;00 - 00;10;40;08
Nick Brophy
So I need to I need to step away. But you don't want me running the business because I can't focus on it right now. And and he was good, I think, like, I, I think because I was, you know, an honest person and genuine and straight shooter, like, he understood that that was actually what was going on.

00;10;40;11 - 00;11;07;22
Nick Brophy
Yeah. And he. And you help me out of there. I think my colleagues were also similarly supportive. And my friends, I think we're, you know, in in a sense, I, I don't go with I don't think I was full disclosure with a lot of my friends about why I was doing it. But I think, you know, when I talk to them, they were generally just, like, jealous, you know, I mean, there's a lot of people who are like, oh, you don't have to, like, go to work for 12 hours a day anymore.

00;11;07;22 - 00;11;23;27
Nick Brophy
Like, that's pretty. That's pretty good. You know, so I would say I got good support from my, my superiors and my peers at work. And definitely from my time to work at restaurants in particular.

00;11;23;29 - 00;11;49;05
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, but, you know, the cliche that the grass is always greener on the other side, you know, once you actually did it, once you actually committed to it, you know, you left Wall Street, you left, you know, a certain type of of Nick Brophy behind. What was it like as you sort of created the new version of you and settled into this, this very different life than you'd been living, you know, through your 20s and 30s.

00;11;49;07 - 00;12;20;02
Nick Brophy
You know, it was uncomfortable. I, and I think for a while, like, I sort of invented, like, stories about myself. Like, I wasn't comfortable telling people I was a stay home parent or, you know, the term lead having been branded at that point, or else I would have grasped onto it. But I, you know, I joined an angel investing community, which was a great way for me to expand my network and meet entrepreneurs and just sort of get out of the Wall Street bubble.

00;12;20;04 - 00;12;40;02
Nick Brophy
But I also did it because, like, I wanted something to tell people that I did, you know, I started consulting. I was an expert witness for, some financial lawsuits. And again, I didn't need the money that came with that. I think I didn't really need to spend time on it, but, like, I wanted to be able to say, like, this is what I do.

00;12;40;02 - 00;13;11;26
Nick Brophy
Like I needed something for my identity. My identity was I'm a Wall Street trader. I'm not a big business. I'm, you know, fixed income trading business. And and I needed something because I wasn't comfortable saying, like, stay home. And, you know, similarly, like, it's it's a little awkward when you're used to the debt because, you know, you're going to the playground and it's, you know, in Manhattan, it's either nannies or moms, you know, like there's not a ton of dads on the playground and and more so and but there are there are a few and certainly there's more in Manhattan.

00;13;11;26 - 00;13;26;25
Nick Brophy
We are in the suburbs, you know, like, you know, and I can go because we live in new Jersey now. I came down here, you know, I mean, there's there's not a lot of dads going around during the day, like, everybody's known to work. So it's, you know, it's it's typical.

00;13;26;28 - 00;13;40;24
Paul Sullivan
Now angel investing for, for people that don't know is is making investments really early on in, in the business in an idea. But if I remember correctly from some of our previous conversations, this is an angel investing group focused on women owned businesses. Is that.

00;13;40;26 - 00;14;00;26
Nick Brophy
Yeah. So it was I don't know if it was founded by women to invest in women owned businesses. And literally you either have to be founded by or run by, like someone in the C-suite, by a woman to to get funding from this group. And, and the way I got connected with them, you know, obviously my wife is it's all about girl power.

00;14;00;27 - 00;14;20;02
Nick Brophy
And and I do everything for her. And so she she was excited about this idea, but I had applied to 4 or 5 New York angel investing groups and like, hadn't heard from any of them. And, you know, this particular group is called Golden Seeds. And, and their website is great. And you responded to me, they were happy to have me.

00;14;20;02 - 00;14;39;02
Nick Brophy
They had a training program. And so, you know, founded and organized by women, it's well run. So, you know, they they got me in there. I got some training. And like they're super organized. They have, you know, monthly meetings where like the entrepreneurs come in pitch and, and like you get to sort of join diligence teams and like it's a real collaborative effort.

00;14;39;02 - 00;14;41;29
Nick Brophy
And I like it a lot. I know a lot of people there.

00;14;42;02 - 00;14;44;15
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And are you still involved in it?

00;14;44;17 - 00;15;02;03
Nick Brophy
I'm still involved. I know that we don't live in the city. I'm not as involved, but I invested in probably five, yes, seven companies that have, put them and I'm still sort of active with and, and, and it sort of sparked me to start the bakery, you know, that was like a part of the, the impetus for me doing.

00;15;02;06 - 00;15;08;15
Paul Sullivan
That was my next question. I mean, that's what I want to hear more about. How did the how did the bakery come about? You you have two locations I was at. Is that.

00;15;08;15 - 00;15;30;09
Nick Brophy
Correct? Yeah, yeah. So I started in Brooklyn. So, you know, one of our children is adopted from Ethiopia. So we when he was in first grade, he joined the school in the city. And it just opened. It was a new private school. We were the sort of founding years. And in his class, there was another boy being adopted from Ethiopia, totally randomly within Brooklyn.

00;15;30;11 - 00;15;49;13
Nick Brophy
But we became friends with the parents and, and the father and I in particular became pretty good friends. And he was completely different. I mean, he's like a fashion photographer, you know, I'm like, walking around my suits. I still work the whole street at the time. And he's like, total Brooklyn hipster, like, you know, but we ended up becoming friends.

00;15;49;20 - 00;15;52;00
Paul Sullivan
This is like a sitcom right here. This is a sitcom in the making.

00;15;52;06 - 00;16;09;22
Nick Brophy
It could be. I mean, totally okay, you know, and so, so over the years, we just stayed close. Our friends, our sons were friends. I would have played a two, would come over, and since I wasn't working and he had a pretty flexible schedule, you know, the boys would be playing and we could be sitting around having a beer and chatting, which was kind of the best play dating ever.

00;16;09;26 - 00;16;33;10
Nick Brophy
Yeah. And and so he was telling me he's like, you know, photography is just sort of going downhill. It's really changing with digital photography. And everybody's got the iPhone and and it's not the same or that it used to be, you know, I'm really looking and and so he went on this business trip and and he found this bakery in Iceland and it was just, just sort of like completely took him away.

00;16;33;10 - 00;16;55;09
Nick Brophy
Was obsessed with their breads, their sour dough breads with nothing like anything you've ever had. And he sort of asked them on a whim, like, hey, can I do an apprenticeship here to learn how to bake? No, I can't, we just opened a new store, like come on in. And so he worked there for about a month and he learned the trade, and he came back to Brooklyn and he rented a space on the weekends and was making breads and and he's telling me the story.

00;16;55;09 - 00;17;14;19
Nick Brophy
And I was like, dude, I'm like investing in strangers, businesses. Like, you've got the passion that I see. And these other founders like, let's do it, let's start a business. And so we started a bakery in Brooklyn in 2018. Made a few pivots in terms of what we were selling, however, selling it over the years. But it started pretty well.

00;17;14;21 - 00;17;23;18
Nick Brophy
Yeah. And then when I, when I moved down to new Jersey during the pandemic, I was like, there is nothing like this. I'm going to make sourdough breads and tons of different pastries, like.

00;17;23;18 - 00;17;30;26
Paul Sullivan
But but you were you were ahead of the curve. You were making sure the bread before everybody's locked in their house saying, I'm going to make some sourdough bread.

00;17;31;03 - 00;17;46;28
Nick Brophy
We had all the ingredients, right? We had started. So, and it was hard to get those ingredients during the pandemic. But you know what we could do? But it was, Yeah. So we and so we opened one down here and it's done great. And I got to hire some of my family members, my uncle and my cousin to work with.

00;17;46;28 - 00;17;48;15
Nick Brophy
You work there? It's been it's been awesome.

00;17;48;20 - 00;17;50;03
Paul Sullivan
What's the bakery called?

00;17;50;05 - 00;17;51;06
Nick Brophy
Nick and sons.

00;17;51;08 - 00;17;52;20
Paul Sullivan
Nick. Vincent. Okay. Yeah.

00;17;52;22 - 00;17;56;15
Nick Brophy
So my business partner is also named Nick, and I. You and I.

00;17;56;18 - 00;18;03;00
Paul Sullivan
Also named Nick. You both adopted Joe from Ethiopia. You both of them. Okay. All right. This is a sitcom. This is it.

00;18;03;03 - 00;18;03;25
Nick Brophy
This is it.

00;18;03;27 - 00;18;04;14
Paul Sullivan
You're the be.

00;18;04;17 - 00;18;05;17
Nick Brophy
Your next thing.

00;18;05;19 - 00;18;09;03
Paul Sullivan
What? What is it? What are you known for? Are you known for this out of bread or what?

00;18;09;05 - 00;18;12;01
Nick Brophy
Well, the. The croissants. So we want an award.

00;18;12;03 - 00;18;16;22
Paul Sullivan
Of course, because he. He learned how to bake in Iceland. And Iceland is known for his croissants, so that makes perfect sense.

00;18;16;25 - 00;18;36;12
Nick Brophy
Exactly. And but we won an award. Best New York City best croissant was the title. That's legit in 2021. Yeah. No, it wasn't the New York Times that, like, gave us that, claim, but it was laid out like this foodie sort of Instagram thing that has a decent amount of followers. And, you know, we're going to run with it.

00;18;36;13 - 00;18;36;20
Nick Brophy
I mean.

00;18;36;20 - 00;18;45;01
Paul Sullivan
For, for New York City listeners here, like, did like Baltasar, did they come after you, like, start gunning for you like you had a better croissant than they did some of the real people?

00;18;45;06 - 00;18;55;09
Nick Brophy
I mean, it's not even close. So the Balthasar, it's like I mean, if you have one of those, they're they're mass producing them. I mean, ours are made by hand. And it's, you know, we want to make a certain number.

00;18;55;09 - 00;19;04;09
Paul Sullivan
So I'm just I'm just imagining now, like, you go back almost 30, you know, trash talking on the gridiron, the way you're trash talking about facades.

00;19;04;12 - 00;19;06;25
Nick Brophy
Very. It's a very different, type of trash talking.

00;19;07;03 - 00;19;17;06
Paul Sullivan
So during all of this, you know, your kids, they're growing, they're getting older. What was happening with your wife and. And her career while while you're pursuing this other avenue.

00;19;17;08 - 00;19;44;03
Nick Brophy
So. So she had what I would say was a great work life balance at her employers. We she was there for almost 25 years that credit to market Credit Suisse. And she just had a great work life balance and had enough sort of institutional credibility there that she could spend family time when she needed to, you know, work from home when she needed it, even before, like way before the pandemic.

00;19;44;06 - 00;20;07;02
Nick Brophy
But she just felt like she needed to push herself and try something new. And so she switched jobs to join Goldman Sachs. Probably in like 2017 or so. And, and it was, it was, it was it was an eye opener for me. It was 2016. It was and I, I mean, it was like, I think she works twice as hard like, and she was pretty.

00;20;07;02 - 00;20;25;24
Nick Brophy
I mean, she's, she was probably the hardest first working person Credit Suisse. And she work twice as hard. But she joined moments next. And that's just the face. Everyone there ran out and she did it for five years. And then she decided to quit again and to just like, try a completely different industry. But she's driven, she's got career goals.

00;20;25;24 - 00;20;41;09
Nick Brophy
You know, we've we've talked a lot about it, like she, she wants to keep accomplishing and I'm 100% supportive of that. And anything I can do to help by being the lead guide and taking the stuff, I'm doing.

00;20;41;11 - 00;21;04;05
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. What was it like during the the pandemic when, you know, you're running the show at home bakery of your investment, but then your wife is also home and she's, you know, this not with, you know, Goldman Sachs employees do they don't work from home. So, I mean, what was that experience like for the whole family to have, you know, one, a pandemic, but two, this gym environment at home that you've never had before.

00;21;04;07 - 00;21;29;07
Nick Brophy
So so there was like a couple of there's a couple of answers to that. So the one answer was it was great because she could be more present to it. I mean, like, you know, we're a couple blocks away from the ocean here and, you know, in between phone calls, I mean, she would spend half her time in the city going back and forth to Midtown, you know, like she was in taxis or whoever was going on Goldman's headquarters downtown up to midtown offices to see the clients.

00;21;29;09 - 00;21;49;23
Nick Brophy
So take that away. She was probably having 30 or 40% more meetings, but had more time in between where she could go for a walk on the beach, engage with the kids. I mean, it was really nice and it gave her a taste of and maybe I don't need to be in the office all the time to like, you know, being successful when you have a career.

00;21;49;25 - 00;22;11;08
Nick Brophy
So that was great. But there was also times where, you know, we were at the when the pandemic started, we had two kindergartners who were trying to do remote learning on iPads at the kitchen table which abuts the room her office is in that has French glass doors. The kids are like, you know, pounding on the doors, and she's doing zooms and I'm screaming at them because they're not paying attention to them.

00;22;11;11 - 00;22;13;05
Nick Brophy
English teacher, you know, and it was just like.

00;22;13;09 - 00;22;16;09
Paul Sullivan
So what you're telling me is it went really smoothly. It went great, you know? Yeah.

00;22;16;16 - 00;22;18;28
Nick Brophy
Perfect.

00;22;19;00 - 00;22;23;19
Paul Sullivan
But then the other, you know, but that was your oldest daughter out of the house at that point. Or do you have all or all five.

00;22;23;19 - 00;22;29;22
Nick Brophy
Kids you she was in the house for probably the first three months of the lockdown.

00;22;29;22 - 00;22;32;15
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, yeah. So it's lot. Yeah.

00;22;32;21 - 00;22;34;29
Nick Brophy
Oh, I was supposed to be a 110 pound dog.

00;22;35;02 - 00;22;36;24
Paul Sullivan
What kind of dog?

00;22;36;27 - 00;22;41;14
Nick Brophy
Ernie Doodle, Bernese Mountain dog crosses a poodle, and we just got a second one, like a couple weeks ago.

00;22;41;18 - 00;22;48;14
Paul Sullivan
All right, you know, I'm not. You know, Nick. My name is Nick. I don't know how to bake sourdough bread, but I have two brownie doodles.

00;22;48;16 - 00;22;49;04
Nick Brophy
Oh, nice.

00;22;49;04 - 00;22;59;28
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, yeah. One is, 70 pounds more poodle. The other is, edging close to 100 more. More Bernese. Yeah. So you're good.

00;22;59;28 - 00;23;01;09
Nick Brophy
Dogs. I like.

00;23;01;12 - 00;23;18;26
Paul Sullivan
You know, one of the things I talk about is, you know, not just that the role that man plays a dad, but the role that companies need to play, with, with working moms and and lead that. And one of the things that bang on about is, you know, the phrase work life balance should be banished. It doesn't make any sense.

00;23;18;26 - 00;23;42;04
Paul Sullivan
It's just life. It's life. And in life, sometimes you're with your spouse, sometimes with your kid. Sometimes you're, you know, with your colleagues at work, sometimes you're, you know, blissfully, you know, by your yourself. Yeah. We've talked and it sounded, you know, I don't want to pause. You have sounded like the work life, you know, the ability to work remotely at Goldman wasn't, that easy.

00;23;42;04 - 00;24;02;28
Paul Sullivan
But in in your new position at Uber, it gives her more flexibility so that you as a family can sort of enjoy some of that, some of the good parts of the the pandemic while, you know, still knowing it, you know, you have to go to an office, you have to travel. Is that is that fair to say that just struck more of a balance in 2022 than there was perhaps in 2019?

00;24;03;00 - 00;24;26;21
Nick Brophy
Definitely, definitely. And you know, I think different companies are approaching this differently now. Uber being a tech company, I think they've been sort of ahead of the curve, maybe even before the pandemic with respect to how people work and incorporate work into their lives. I think Goldman Sachs is you know, very public about taking the other track and try to go back to before pandemic ways.

00;24;26;21 - 00;24;46;05
Nick Brophy
And and I think there's going to be a little bit of a lot of employee pushback on that. I mean, there are some companies even within finance. I mean, you can look at like Citibank and said, we're going to embrace this remote working thing and give people flexibility because we realize it's important. And Goldman Sachs's said, we're not, you know, and so I don't know where the winners are going to end up.

00;24;46;05 - 00;24;59;11
Nick Brophy
Shake it out or when, you know, feels like there's a, there's a paradigm shift them for us, it was really important. And for my wife, you know, because she wants to be able to. Yeah. To be more present because.

00;24;59;13 - 00;25;22;12
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. You know, I'm sure it's the same in your town as it is in mine. But a lot of the folks who would commute into the city, they were basically home for 18 months or more. And now they're really starting to to go back into the town feels a little different. How has that been for you to sort of, you know, in the, in the pandemic, I don't know, maybe have more buddies around me and more friends.

00;25;22;12 - 00;25;35;16
Paul Sullivan
And now you're kind of recalibrating, you know, going back to something that, you know, isn't 2020, but it isn't, you know, 2019 either. It feels different. How how has that been for for you as of the dead?

00;25;35;19 - 00;26;08;06
Nick Brophy
Yeah. So I, I don't have that sort of experience because we didn't live here before. So I didn't have, like, the friends set down here. And I'm still, we're still sort of working on building a, set up like a social circle down here. So we, you know, we have friends that we've made. So, you know, I don't I don't have another before to compare to because we didn't, you know, we were here on the weekends and we sort of kept to ourselves with our kids and, and, you know, I think we're we're all trying to it's a, it's a tough commute to the city here and there.

00;26;08;11 - 00;26;14;07
Nick Brophy
There are people that do the daily commute here. Right. But it's not as many as there might be. Okay.

00;26;14;10 - 00;26;33;20
Paul Sullivan
Right, right. Good. Nick. I really enjoyed talking to you. I always like to give, the last question to my guests. Or last answer, I guess. And any last thoughts and any anything? I didn't ask that that you want to share about, you know, your journey as a dad that you think some other listeners might be able to, to benefit from?

00;26;33;22 - 00;26;51;15
Nick Brophy
I guess there's two things. Number one is, you know, when I, when I do talk to my friends now, I would say, you know, they all of them, I actually mention one of them, I mentioned your term leave that to my friends. And so I gotta tell you, it's like the best part of my day. I want to, like, be with my kids, you know?

00;26;51;15 - 00;27;12;04
Nick Brophy
So I think there's a lot of dads who are doing it and or wish they could do it more, but I like I like the company. That's because that's the one thing I miss is the social component that came with, you know, when you're home and you're a dad, you don't have that social network. You don't have, you know, the watercooler talk.

00;27;12;04 - 00;27;31;19
Nick Brophy
And and, you know, there's not a lot of other dads going to school pick up or going to the playground during the day. I, I think putting it together and getting in the company of dads, you know, to be a thing can be really important to those kids that are all because I think they're going to, you know, at least for me, I needed that.

00;27;31;19 - 00;27;39;23
Nick Brophy
I need that social connection. I was looking for it for a long time, and it took me, you know, it took me a few years to figure it out. Yeah.

00;27;39;25 - 00;27;44;17
Paul Sullivan
Good. Nick. Thanks again. I really appreciate your time today. It's been enjoyable.

00;27;44;20 - 00;27;45;10
Nick Brophy
All right. Thank you.