EP62: How To Work Smarter And Be Present As A Dad

Interview with Travis Parry / Efficiency Expert and Lead Dad

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Work too much? Struggle allocating time to home, work, your community, yourself? This was Travis Parry, a father of seven, who had a revelation when his father passed away suddenly. He wanted to find a better way to do things. So he founded the Make Time Institute and now consults with business owners on how to reprioritize their lives. Listen to his actionable tips for any dad.

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Transcript

00;00;04;16 - 00;00;28;06
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads Podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, straight and sublime aspects of being lead that in a world where men who are the go to parents aren't always accepted at work, among their friends, or in their community for what they're doing. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan, and our podcast is just one of the many things we produce each week at the company that we have another podcast focused on global that issues.

00;00;28;08 - 00;00;51;08
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including Lead Dad of the week. We have our community online and in person. The one stop shop for all of this is our newsletter, The Dad. So sign up today at the Company of dads.com backslash the dad. That's a company dads.com backslash. The dad for our weekly newsletter. Today my guest is Travis Parry, founder of the Make Time Institute.

00;00;51;11 - 00;01;12;19
Paul Sullivan
Travis says he was once a workaholic financial advisor until a light bulb went off and he realized he had to change or he'd be short changing his family of seven kids and wife, as well as his own well-being. So he started the Make Time Institute, now works with financial and other professionals to reprioritize and create better balance in their lives.

00;01;12;22 - 00;01;18;15
Paul Sullivan
He's also written the book Achieving Balance. Travis, welcome to the Company Does podcast.

00;01;18;17 - 00;01;20;20
Travis Parry 
Hey, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

00;01;20;23 - 00;01;33;11
Paul Sullivan
All right, so let's talk about your own epiphany, that you wanted or needed to work differently. What happened to, you know, what gave me the sort of before and after what happened in that that moment for you?

00;01;33;13 - 00;01;52;29
Travis Parry 
You know, it started before I was a financial advisor. I wanted to be a pilot. My dad actually was a big part of that. And he when I was, I think I was 18 years old. 19 years old, he got me a lesson, and I went down and flew the Cessna over the ocean in Southern California. And honestly, I had the ride of my life.

00;01;53;01 - 00;02;02;11
Travis Parry 
I thought, this is it. Like I'm going to be a pilot. It's like, if I can fly above the clouds in the ocean and do this every day, like, this is brilliant. It's like, how come nobody show?

00;02;02;11 - 00;02;06;03
Paul Sullivan
Because why does that pilot? This is fun, right?

00;02;06;11 - 00;02;16;06
Travis Parry 
Right. And, you know, it's interesting. After we touched down my dad because I had to make this 180 degree, kind of dive bombing, like, I mean, it sounds like a landing on it.

00;02;16;08 - 00;02;18;11
Paul Sullivan
Is like it was on here. What do you.

00;02;18;13 - 00;02;45;11
Travis Parry 
Like having on my suit? Yeah. No, but it was like this I wasn't expecting. It was like, we have to do, like, kind of a 180 and down in Burbank. And he told me what to do. I've never done it, but apparently he was trusting me because he thought I was doing pretty well and I landed it. My dad gets out and he's like, Travis, did you land that or did the instructor and instructors like my hands were, you know, on the controls, and I was ready at any time, but he landed it and my dad was like, oh, snap.

00;02;45;14 - 00;03;02;08
Travis Parry 
Like in my. And I didn't know this. My dad, you know, I know he had fascination with planes, but I didn't know he took a lesson when he was my age and he wanted to be a pilot but never got after it. He ended up in his family business. And long story. Yeah, that moment made him say, I'm signing up.

00;03;02;11 - 00;03;09;04
Travis Parry 
He got his license, he bought a plane, and we flew together for a little while. And, you know, it's an expensive hobby if you don't do that for.

00;03;09;04 - 00;03;09;28
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, yeah.

00;03;10;02 - 00;03;27;19
Travis Parry 
But long story on this one is I really thought I was going to be a pilot, professionally. So I interviewed and I, I tell all, you know, young people, if they're looking to get into anything, interview people, shadow, go check it out before you do a four year degree in and hate your life because you're an accountant.

00;03;27;19 - 00;03;42;18
Travis Parry 
Sorry. Any accounts out there love you. But, you know, the reality is that happens to so many people. And I was I interviewed a few of them. One of them said, do you like driving, you know, riding in a bus and like, well, I did that for several years on my, you know, my proselyting mission for my church.

00;03;42;20 - 00;03;58;01
Travis Parry 
It's not my favorite. It's like, do you like being gone from your family? Most of the time I'm like, no, I want a balanced life. Like, I want to own my own time. And he's like, you don't want to be a pilot. Like, oh, snap, you know? So he was.

00;03;58;01 - 00;04;04;21
Paul Sullivan
But I'm in the Tiger Woods of piloting. I. The first time I got on the plane, I was like, landed it. Don't you understand? Yeah.

00;04;04;21 - 00;04;28;02
Travis Parry 
Like, don't you get it? Yeah, I get it. So it's been it's been a drive of mine. So I settled for. I'm going to get my pilot's license, you know, very soon. I even have on my desk the aerodynamics for naval air aviators. Like, I bought this the other day from my professor. Friend who actually runs the school for it here at Utah State for, for, you know, creating great pilots out of, out of Utah.

00;04;28;05 - 00;04;49;10
Travis Parry 
And so I'm reading that I'm getting started, I'm getting ready, I've got a goal to to get on that as a, you know, a forever hobby. But I will tell you this, that changed my life because I knew I wanted balance. I want to be there for my kids like my dad was there for me. Why? My dad may have not flown commercial jets and or even, you know, in the Top Gun era, you know, flying around on a naval aircraft carriers.

00;04;49;12 - 00;05;11;12
Travis Parry 
He was there for my soccer games. He showed up right. And, you know, helped out at church in my youth groups. He was always there. And I wanted to give that to my kids. So much. So that I knew even at like 21, I want to choose a path that will allow me to do that. And so I interviewed other people and I found this guy.

00;05;11;12 - 00;05;26;23
Travis Parry 
I was like, hey, I really love what I do. And he was an accountant and financial advisor. He was a dual role. And he's like, hey, I get to make my own schedule. I make a lot of money. I help people with their goals on their, you know, on the financial side. And it just the lightbulb went off.

00;05;26;23 - 00;05;41;16
Travis Parry 
I'm like, that's what I want. So I got into the industry thinking, I'm gonna have freedom. I'm gonna have flexibility, I'm gonna have financial benefit, only to find out I was really running my own business and I was starting from scratch.

00;05;41;18 - 00;06;05;12
Paul Sullivan
And let me just pause you just for the listeners here who don't understand the model, I mean, most financial advisors, maybe you get a fee for doing a financial plan, but for the most part, you're paid, on assets under management. You're paid a standard fee of about 1%. But, you know, for you to get, you know, somebody to give you 10 million bucks, that's let's say you have 30 people each give you their life savings, and it gets you to 10 million bucks.

00;06;05;18 - 00;06;28;09
Paul Sullivan
You as an advisor can't really make, a living off of that because it's you have all kinds of expenses and all these guys. So you really have to get to, you know, 80, 90, $100 million to be making, a decent living with all your expenses. And that is, of course, really hard because you're not people aren't giving you their money in million dollar chunk, which even that would be 100 people.

00;06;28;17 - 00;06;39;18
Paul Sullivan
They're giving you $200,000 here, $400,000 here. And so you found that, you know, raising the assets took quite some time to get you to that level that the accountant, financial advisor you shadowed had had already achieved. Correct.

00;06;39;20 - 00;06;50;18
Travis Parry 
Precisely. Like you said it better than I could have ever. And what I did is I went after and I tried to find, can I partner with someone, could I, you know, can I be their lackey? Can I be their underling? Can I fly.

00;06;50;18 - 00;06;53;02
Paul Sullivan
Their plane for them? Can I fly their plane for them?

00;06;53;05 - 00;06;54;28
Travis Parry 
And can I fly their plane?

00;06;54;28 - 00;06;57;00
Paul Sullivan
The whole night? Yeah, yeah.

00;06;57;03 - 00;07;17;08
Travis Parry 
That's it. Like, and you know that I actually made that work for a little while, and then I decided I need to be independent, and I needed to jump in and start my own business. And I actually became more of the guy that I didn't want to be. In fact, I was trying to do everything. Fooling myself, becoming what I call a do it all.

00;07;17;11 - 00;07;34;18
Travis Parry 
I became a do it all, you know, business owner and financial advisor because I thought if I could just do it faster and better than everyone else and I could become really productive, which I call productive workaholic, it kind of led me that direction. I'm really productive. Then, you know, I could I could make this learning curve.

00;07;34;18 - 00;07;53;27
Travis Parry 
This this earning curve happened faster, and I could get to the sense of balance that I needed. But right about that same time, this all kind of happened all the same time. All this dust was, was just kind of settling as my father, he was 49. And, again, he and I had a great relationship. I got to fly planes with him.

00;07;53;27 - 00;08;17;09
Travis Parry 
I got to work with him. I love my father and still do. But he passed away, just suddenly on a Monday afternoon, riding his mountain bike with his friend on a trail that I've written with him hundreds, if not thousands of times. Of a of a massive heart attack caused by what they call the widowmaker. It's where one of your arteries is 90% clogged and the rest look just fine.

00;08;17;09 - 00;08;36;27
Travis Parry 
Your blood pressure's fine. There's no signs. In fact, the only sign of of this usually, of this, disease is heart attack and death. Yeah. And only 3% actually survive. And he was not one of the 3% crazy is his. One of his best friends riding with him was an EMT, and he worked on him for about a half an hour.

00;08;36;27 - 00;08;57;22
Travis Parry 
He was a hero, tried to save his life, and until medical teams arrived, I was 26, 26. I've been a financial advisor for a few years and I'm the oldest son. So I come home and for two weeks, actually two months I spent helping my mom get all of her affairs in order pay everything off, get everything set up.

00;08;57;22 - 00;09;13;08
Travis Parry 
I was, you know, I was the guy. I was the 26, I could I barely knew, like, how to be married to my wife. You know, I barely knew how to run a household. And yet, all of those things were dumped on me. And I grew up, people looked at me like, man, you've age, like, ten years.

00;09;13;08 - 00;09;35;28
Travis Parry 
In about two months, just because of the impact it had on me. But it wasn't just like the stress. It wasn't the I didn't sleep, it wasn't that I was kind of depressed at that time and it was grieving. I was going through grief and it's natural and it's okay. But I was freaked out. I was freaked out because I look like my dad had the same genetics.

00;09;35;28 - 00;09;57;02
Travis Parry 
Like I'm doing the same things, eating the same things, following his path, going, I want to make it to 100. I don't want to make it to 49 or 50. On the flip side, I also was incredibly inspired because I had to write his obituary. And I don't know if you've ever written an obituary. Paul. But that experience was not anything I was prepared to do.

00;09;57;02 - 00;10;17;11
Travis Parry 
And everybody said, well, you write it, Travis. Like, you know, they did. They everybody was helping out in different ways. But so I interview people and I looked at dad's life and quite honestly, after I wrote his obituary and, you know, you write the good things and you write the best things about those people, the individuals. But I thought, would people say this about me?

00;10;17;14 - 00;10;41;23
Travis Parry 
What if I died today? Am I accomplishing the things I want to accomplish? Am I becoming the person that I need to become? Yeah, and I had an epiphany right then and there, and I said, I need to change my life in a great measure. My career, my health and relationships with my spouse, with my children who were just two and one the time I only had two children.

00;10;41;26 - 00;10;55;16
Travis Parry 
And, you know, we ended up homeschooling them plant based, like we did all of these things that people think, dude, you're weird. I'm like, I know I'm weird, but I'm doing these things because I know I need to make major change in my life. And it's not just a tiny little transformation.

00;10;55;18 - 00;11;05;21
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And that, you know, is almost 50 a little more than 15 years ago is that when you you stop being a financial advisor? When did you you start the Make Time Institute and start coaching people?

00;11;05;23 - 00;11;16;15
Travis Parry 
That was a transition. And I thought, well, if I could start my own company, I could do some coaching while I was doing advising. And that's where, the, the idea and that's.

00;11;16;21 - 00;11;18;06
Paul Sullivan
That's not, that's not making time.

00;11;18;11 - 00;11;37;23
Travis Parry 
That's, that's no, it's not, it was, it was I was actually doing two businesses at once. And then I had to make the decision and was actually during the recession, I had to make the decision right then in there, you I focus on one or focus on the other because I became, you know, again, this productive workaholic. I was a do it all became a productive workaholic.

00;11;37;23 - 00;11;57;16
Travis Parry 
And I was really multitasking two businesses trying to make it work as as one. And I realized I'm a life coach. I'm not necessarily a financial advisor, but I was holding on to that dream, right? Because it was such a dream. And once I let go of being a financial advisor, I was able to now go do research.

00;11;57;16 - 00;12;19;06
Travis Parry 
I went and did a master's and a PhD and started studying my theories. And I'm not just some coach who doesn't have anything behind him, you know, except for maybe some life experience, which is good. That's good. But I wanted to be Doctor Perry. I wanted to establish a theory, test it, work it, and come back to the industry that I was thinking, gave me balance.

00;12;19;08 - 00;12;42;21
Travis Parry 
Thinking gave me freedom of flexibility, only to find it was a two edged sword. So now I've made a living and a life, business life of helping financial advisors to have better balance. They struggle, and they're actually a lot of them. About 56% of them are what would be classified as a workaholic. According to the psychiatrist, the DSM five.

00;12;42;23 - 00;13;01;27
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Talk about the word balance. We hear it. We've always heard a lot, but we hear it more than ever now in this sort of post-Covid world, as people are trying to figure out how are they going to work, how are they going to be parents, how are they going to be, you know, spouses, or how are they going to be friends and, you know, children to their their adult parent?

00;13;02;04 - 00;13;05;28
Paul Sullivan
What does balance mean to you?

00;13;06;00 - 00;13;37;01
Travis Parry 
That's the question I ask on every single one of my podcasts. We've interviewed over about 750 business owners, a lot of financial advisors and industry, but now we're kind of going to entrepreneurs that are abroad. And I asking that question, and what I found is that most people tell me it's a feeling they feel balanced when they're old, 1980s, 19, maybe even 90s version of what balance of work and life and having some kind of equilibrium is an absolute total myth, farce, whatever you want to call it.

00;13;37;08 - 00;13;55;22
Travis Parry 
In fact, people still send me hate mail or social media comments. Off balance is a joke. It's a and I agree with them. I say. I know I wanted to write the book The Myth of Balance. It would have been cool, but I think it was already taken. Right. And so I and I want to be positive and I want to be strength space.

00;13;55;22 - 00;14;27;27
Travis Parry 
So I'm like, well, let's redefine balance. Let's talk about what achieving balance really is. And most people tell me it's when they are living their highest priorities. It's not necessarily certain amount of time at work or certain amount of time at home. It's also being present, like it's doing all these things. But if I, if I was to tell you the number one, two, three priorities in most people's life physical health, spiritual health, relationship with spouse and family, like those are the top 3 or 4.

00;14;27;29 - 00;14;51;24
Travis Parry 
Yeah, those things, if they are not being tended to, people feel dad's feel out of balance. They feel like they're missing something. And they know it because they don't sleep well, they don't eat well, they're not exercising, they're not connecting with God or the universe. Whatever they feel is their spiritual life. They're not being a great dad or husband, and those things are connected.

00;14;51;29 - 00;15;02;06
Paul Sullivan
But when that they're in that position, how do you help them? How do you help them to to, you know, achieve the balance for, for themselves or to do, I guess, maybe reprioritize things? What are some of the things that you do?

00;15;02;11 - 00;15;20;02
Travis Parry 
Yeah. So for them wonderful first step is like get the priorities in order. What are your priorities? I talk about it in my book Achieving Balance. I look at ten areas of life and I teach them how to prioritize them. If they're struggling with that. And and most people, they've always been told, put your priorities in order, but they've never done it.

00;15;20;05 - 00;15;40;19
Travis Parry 
I actually have that exercise in the book. Thank you to Doug Carter. Big shout out to him. He's a great mentor of mine. He helped me to kind of develop this model. But so so now what? Yeah. You've got your priorities in order. Well, now go ahead and decide. In your ideal world, if you had an ideal week, an average, ideal week, what would it actually look like?

00;15;40;22 - 00;16;02;13
Travis Parry 
How many hours would you spend in every area? Once you've discovered that, once you decide what that is for you, I'm not the Dave Ramsey of how much time you put in every area. I, I'm not going to tell you what to do, Paul and I might tell other dads what to do, but I'm going to ask them for them to go through that experiment and decide for them how many, how many hours they should be spending.

00;16;02;15 - 00;16;24;16
Travis Parry 
Once they've created that, then it it goes on their calendar. On my screen next to me, I'm looking at you on one screen. On the other screen over here has my ideal calendar, and I know where I need to be spending my time on a daily, weekly, and even a yearly basis. I create an ideal calendar where I say, okay, these are the weeks were taken off and I take about 16 to 18 weeks off per year.

00;16;24;22 - 00;16;44;04
Travis Parry 
I don't work Fridays and I work for sometimes four and a half days a week. Most Fridays I, I don't have any appointments I might reserve for. If I need to come in, do something last minute before a vacation or some training or something like that. But I work 25 hours a week and I've been doing this for free.

00;16;44;10 - 00;17;10;11
Travis Parry 
Literally, I don't know, over ten years now. There have been times in my life where I have had to, for a period, maybe work. You know, more than that, maybe in 50, 60 hours because I was struggling. Right. But once I came up with this model and I realized something, if I could be super productive with my time and only work in what I call your work sweet spot, which is the 4 or 5 activities that I do really, really well.

00;17;10;14 - 00;17;30;07
Travis Parry 
And you know, I may not be the best in the world, but I do them well. If I can just focus on those, delegate, automate, or delete everything else out of my life to my team, to others, then I can be as productive as humanly possible. I can leave work after 25 hours and know that I can go snowboarding.

00;17;30;12 - 00;17;44;27
Travis Parry 
I can go hang out with my wife. I can do all these things with no guilt, no issues, knowing that my business has doubled and tripled during times where everybody else is putting their head in the sand and really overworking because they're stressed out.

00;17;45;00 - 00;18;03;15
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And so they say, okay, that's great. You know that P but, you work for yourself. You know, I work for fill in the blank, you know, you know, Hasbro, IBM, Microsoft. There's no way I'm going to get by with that. How do you help them or or your, your, you know, initial example, a financial advisor.

00;18;03;15 - 00;18;14;24
Paul Sullivan
I work for Merrill Lynch. I work for Morgan Stanley. How do you help people in those positions? You know, maximize that that balance when they don't own their time the way you do?

00;18;14;26 - 00;18;30;25
Travis Parry 
Yeah. And remember, I'm not the Dave Ramsey of time. I'm not going to tell you what to do. I simply set up the principles and say follow these principles. This is what I do. But I have no way, shape or fashion telling the world, you have to only work 25 hours or you're a bad dad. Like that's not it.

00;18;30;27 - 00;18;52;12
Travis Parry 
It's definitely find out how many hours you want to be working. What is your ideal calendar? Most people I meet with are 65 70 hours a week. By the time we track it, they think they're at 50 or 55, but most people don't track it. So step number one, if you want to change anything, track it, track it.

00;18;52;15 - 00;19;14;11
Travis Parry 
I have, and an app that, a business partner of mine, he's developed a large part of it called time lift lift time lift. And you can track your time. You can learn from what it is that you're doing wrong, or you can simply take a sheet of paper. And every half an hour, write down what you did or take a snapshot of your calendar, whatever that is.

00;19;14;14 - 00;19;29;27
Travis Parry 
But track it, learn from what you're doing, and then decide. Do you want to change? Most people that they prioritize their time. They look at those top three priorities and I ask them, are you spending enough time in these top three? And unequivocally.

00;19;30;00 - 00;19;30;26
Paul Sullivan
No, no.

00;19;30;26 - 00;19;47;25
Travis Parry 
Not as much as I'd like. So the make time method is let's make you super productive in the time you have at work. If you're working a salary W2 job, I'm not looking down at you at all like we we need. I need people on my team that do that. And that's fine. Not everybody has to be an entrepreneur.

00;19;47;25 - 00;20;11;16
Travis Parry 
I don't believe that. However, if you're putting in 40 hours, put in the most productive 40 hours you can for your, you know, boss and your manager do the best you can when you clock out. Done right. That's the beauty of of having a job. You know, it's hard for me as a business owner to clock out mentally for my job because it seems like, you know, it's my baby, right?

00;20;11;16 - 00;20;35;10
Travis Parry 
And that's. And that's another part of it. Like being present business owners, they have the ability and quite honestly, it's a two edged sword. They could work 120 hours. Yeah, they could work 25 hours. And those are on salary I would say salary employees, same type of issue. If you're a salaried employer employee and you're working for your employer, it's like, hey, get this job done, get this project done.

00;20;35;12 - 00;20;54;13
Travis Parry 
You might have a week where you are working way more than you'd like because you have a deadline. Totally understandable, I get it. But if that's what you do every week of your life for 52 weeks, you never take time off and you never see your family and you never see the gym. You're going to experience imbalance in a crazy fashion.

00;20;54;13 - 00;21;12;13
Travis Parry 
So figure out what that is, set boundaries for yourself and be able to live life outside of work, even if you love what you do. I hear this all the time, but Travis, is it really work if I love it? Of course it is. Like if you didn't do that, what else would you do?

00;21;12;13 - 00;21;17;10
Paul Sullivan
I'm actually a professional surfer, Travis. And, what else would I do?

00;21;17;12 - 00;21;18;22
Travis Parry 
I mean, Paul, let's go.

00;21;18;22 - 00;21;36;22
Paul Sullivan
And I'm not going. I'm not surfing. My hobby is being a financial advisor. So, but, you know, I think we all were kids, you know, and when you're a kid, you have lots of free time. And, you know, we used to play, a couple years older than you, but. But I look at my own kids, I have three, you have seven.

00;21;36;22 - 00;21;56;06
Paul Sullivan
And, you know, I don't know how your kids are, but mine, you know, we we try to pump the brakes so we don't overscheduled them. But a lot of kids in our neighborhood, in our town are very scheduled. But, you know, for us as adults, I feel like you know, that scheduling in that those hours it they ramp up.

00;21;56;06 - 00;22;14;28
Paul Sullivan
You know, when you're in college you you're you're having you're learning a lot, but you're also learning by yourself. You have tons of free time. First job. You know, you work or work. And then suddenly you go from this 40, 45 hours a week to, as you said, 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week, you know, almost, you know, always on.

00;22;15;01 - 00;22;36;17
Paul Sullivan
So if you've gotten yourself into that position, which I think a lot of listeners will be able to identify with you, you've gotten yourself into that position. You can't just go cold turkey or maybe can Tampa, but how do you what are your strategies for people to sort of work back and go from 72, 65 to 60 to 55 without feeling like they're total, you know, slackers, that they're still production to do it.

00;22;36;17 - 00;22;38;03
Paul Sullivan
And how do they do that?

00;22;38;05 - 00;23;07;10
Travis Parry 
Sure is beautiful. Yeah, I actually mentioned this in Achieving Balance. I have a 90 day system. Like in 90 days you can change just about anything like you really can. I love I love the quarter, I love look at, look at how the life is built for us on this planet in seasons right now. Aside from the fact that I still have six feet of snow on the front of my yard because we're having an absolute crazy winter like most times, like spring should be here in a couple of weeks, right?

00;23;07;10 - 00;23;31;01
Travis Parry 
It's the melting. But that said, like, normally, we've got these seasons that will last about three months. I believe that if you can take 90 days and make a change in your life, you can do that to your health. You can do that relationship. You can do with your time management. All of these things. So decide in 90 days from now how much do I really want to be working?

00;23;31;03 - 00;23;49;11
Travis Parry 
And if that's 40 hours, great. And mark it down. If that's 25 hours rate, you know, if you're at 85 and you want to get down to 65, that's healthy. Like that's a 20 hour drop. I guarantee that most people my experience has been when they look at where their spending those hours at work, they're not in what I call their sweet spot.

00;23;49;11 - 00;24;13;21
Travis Parry 
Okay, sweet spot. Like is, you know, you've played baseball, tennis, hockey, whatever, some kind of, even racket sports, like, you know, like I mentioned tennis. Yeah. They, you know, it's it's that spot on the racket or the or the bat or the or the, you know, wherever that is and whatever instrument you're using, it's right there where if you hit the ball, you don't feel it at all.

00;24;13;23 - 00;24;36;18
Travis Parry 
It feels so natural, feel so great. Most individuals, whether they're running a business or whether they're working for their boss or for the business, they are not working in their sweet spot, which I identify as your top 4 or 5 activities that really are the most valuable to the company or pay you the most. If you're the owner and the most enjoyable.

00;24;36;21 - 00;25;01;03
Travis Parry 
Now, I'm not saying that if you know, if there's parts of your business that you know have to be done, you know not to do them. If you're the business owner, you can delegate, automate, delete those things like I is incredible now. And you can get do a lot of things. But also the importance of delegating if you're the guy that's everything's being delegated to, then you have to figure out what are the most important things to get done.

00;25;01;06 - 00;25;40;10
Travis Parry 
That's the trick, because if you can do the most important things, you're going to be head and shoulders above everyone else. You are going to be invaluable to your company. So what are those? Yeah, focus on in the time now that you're going to be saving from not wasting and all these other activities that are typically six, seven, eight, nine, ten and all, and I've seen like 25, 30 activities that people do if they're down there, it's usually because they're afraid they don't want to do those top activities because of some kind of limiting block or belief system that's keeping them from being in their in their sweet spot.

00;25;40;13 - 00;26;07;11
Travis Parry 
And when I've actually tracked this with my client, I found that they're only in their sweet spot to begin with. When they work with me about 20 to 25% of the time, that means financial advisors or planners. They're not really financial advisors and planners. They're order takers. They are, you know, lunch orders. They are paper pushers. They're doing all these other things that aren't getting them to be as productive as they could be in their time.

00;26;07;14 - 00;26;25;00
Paul Sullivan
I agree. I mean, that's one of the things you talk about at the Company of Dads is how do we reimagine the work day for for everyone and to admit that, you know, those of us who worked in an office, you know, pre 2020, you know, 2018 before, you know, the pandemic started three years ago now when we were in offices, we were not productive 100% of the time.

00;26;25;00 - 00;26;42;17
Paul Sullivan
We were not productive 75% of the time. Now, some of it was enjoyable. You go out and you get a cup of coffee with your friend, you go out, get a lunch or something like that, but lunch is drag on and you know this and suddenly, you know, you could have spent your entire day in the office and really accomplished very little.

00;26;42;19 - 00;27;03;09
Paul Sullivan
Whereas if we sort of reimagine how we work and we work more efficiently and we sort of prioritize, you know, when we do, we do it, it's going to make a huge difference. You know, our focus is on dads. Yeah, obviously this company does. How do you help, you know, with that link between, you know, masculinity and money and some really outdated views on, you know, being having to be the primary earner.

00;27;03;16 - 00;27;12;19
Paul Sullivan
How do you help, men use your, you know, ideas and your method around balance to become better fathers.

00;27;12;21 - 00;27;36;05
Travis Parry 
This is you know, I just interviewed, Gary Cardone, Grant Cardone brother. It's interesting. You know, he's made a lot of money. He's been very successful. But the very end of our conversation, he said none of that matters. None of it. If someone shows up at my funeral, which I don't want them to anyway. But if they did, you know, my gravesite said, I do not want them to tell.

00;27;36;06 - 00;27;59;25
Travis Parry 
Oh, he was such a great businessman. He did such great things. I only care that I was a good dad. And I said, okay, that's or. Yeah, Gary, that's exactly what I am all about. I did a PhD in family relations and human development to understand how my my theory fits in, like the is this really making sense?

00;27;59;27 - 00;28;23;02
Travis Parry 
Can we really make time? And that's why we have the Make Time Institute. And I think, yes, you can. You have to make time for your highest priorities in life. And if your children are truly your highest priorities, how much time are you spending with them? Now? This gets us into the time discussion. Well, Travis isn't it true that you could just have, like, good quality time and call it good?

00;28;23;04 - 00;28;49;02
Travis Parry 
No it's not. Quality and quantity are not the same and they're not mutually exclusive. You actually need to spend time for, you know, quantity time in order to get those bits and pieces of quality time. I take Fridays and I go half day skiing or boarding with my younger kids or my older kids, sometimes on a Monday if we got it off and, we'll go skiing and sometimes I'll just do that.

00;28;49;02 - 00;28;59;22
Travis Parry 
Just, just my daughter and I just my son and I for hours together, you know, we can talk about it for hours. Obviously, we're skiing half the time. Right on the lift when it's.

00;28;59;22 - 00;29;03;15
Paul Sullivan
Just sitting on left. A lot of sitting. Yeah, yeah.

00;29;03;17 - 00;29;24;21
Travis Parry 
You know, that's invaluable time driving up and back. Like we get into deep conversations. I believe that you need to make time for that. And if it's not on your calendar, then someone else is trying to pull you away. Something else is going to pull you away. If it doesn't get scheduled, it doesn't get done. Make sure that's in your calendar.

00;29;24;23 - 00;29;41;15
Travis Parry 
I had seven children. People ask me what time, Travis, how do you do that? Well, I have an amazing wife. We homeschool. Our kids were very flexible. I take them on trips with me. We see the world, I teach them real world experiences, and we're very fortunate to do that. I'm not saying you have to do that. I'm just saying it's a lifestyle we've chosen.

00;29;41;15 - 00;29;59;12
Travis Parry 
And, you know, we're fortunate. However, that said, it, it really has allowed me to spend a lot more one on one time. And it allows me to to do the things I want to do with my kids, teach them, teach them how to work. They work in my office sometimes, you know, at a younger age, they may be the guy that's cleaning.

00;29;59;14 - 00;30;22;26
Travis Parry 
You know, they're cleaning the office at first before they get on phones and and help me with things and back end, stuff. However, I have also found outside of work, outside of, you know, doing fun stuff together. I interview them every month. My wife and I, we have a conversation and we go over their goals. What are your goals in all these areas of your life when they're young?

00;30;22;26 - 00;30;26;27
Travis Parry 
It's like, my goal is to learn how to ski. You know, my goal is to to.

00;30;27;01 - 00;30;31;04
Paul Sullivan
Be a unicorn. Daddy, I would like to be a unicorn.

00;30;31;06 - 00;30;36;17
Travis Parry 
Ball, you animal. Because then I can fly, right? I can fly and.

00;30;36;17 - 00;30;39;02
Paul Sullivan
You have a cool horn and people like that. Guys.

00;30;39;05 - 00;30;40;21
Travis Parry 
I get out of my way, I.

00;30;40;23 - 00;30;42;10
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, you know, try this.

00;30;42;15 - 00;31;08;27
Travis Parry 
Yeah. It's like the rhinoceros flying through the air, you know? But, you know, the great thing about that is, I'm. I am my kids coach. Parents are here to coach. They're not there to demand ultimate obedience. They're not there to be the kid's friend. And I've studied parental, you know, methods and styles and balanced families for literally years.

00;31;08;27 - 00;31;29;22
Travis Parry 
I've seen all the different systems out there, all of the greatest theories. And what I've discovered is the best way to be the greatest parent you can be is to coach them. How would you coach not? I'm not talent, you know, I'm saying like on the sidelines, yelling at your kid, crazy. You know, you know, sometimes the fans get in a sports game.

00;31;29;24 - 00;31;54;04
Travis Parry 
I'm talking about an individual coach. I pull vaulted in high school, and I kind of fell into it because I was running track, and I wasn't that fast, and it wasn't too slow. So I was like, I run the 400, and I hated it in this guy came to me say, hey, we're starting a pole vaulting team. We're just people we're going to try out, you know, pretty much everybody will make it because there's nobody here's a pole.

00;31;54;10 - 00;32;15;17
Travis Parry 
It flexes like this. You have to run, shove it in this metal box at the end of your runway without, like, impaling yourself. And then you got to jump in the air. And when you get upside down, you actually need to turn in a 180, throw the pull over, slip yourself onto your back, and land on this really soft part, not on the ground.

00;32;15;17 - 00;32;20;02
Travis Parry 
You'll kill yourself in order to complete the event. I was like, oh, sure, I'll do that.

00;32;20;03 - 00;32;24;06
Paul Sullivan
I've been working my entire life for this. This reminds me of my childhood. Like, yes, I mean, no big deal.

00;32;24;08 - 00;32;42;24
Travis Parry 
Yeah. I, you know, the first day, you know, I think I was only jumping over it like, front ways, you know, like, we just would we had no idea what we're doing. A coach came out and, you know, he worked with us individually. He helped me to clear almost 12ft as a as a 10th grader. And that was huge.

00;32;42;24 - 00;32;50;17
Travis Parry 
I went to state and then I got like third place. I'm not amazing, but I did it like I was doing this thing. And I think.

00;32;50;17 - 00;32;51;27
Paul Sullivan
That is.

00;32;51;29 - 00;33;18;21
Travis Parry 
Where this world lacks is we lack this coaching mentality for our own children, not just to discipline, not to be their friend, but someplace in the middle where it's a mentor, a coach, someone they can teach you over time. Yeah, there may be time for discipline, but does it need to be corporal punishment? No. Researchers said absolutely not.

00;33;18;21 - 00;33;41;09
Travis Parry 
Right. And do we just friend our children and hope that they'll like us? The point as a parent is not to be liked. The point is to teach and coach and mentor. Your child will thank you, thank you, thank you over and over again. When they leave home and you've taught them life lessons that their friends didn't learn, and they will finally come back saying, thank you, mom.

00;33;41;09 - 00;34;18;08
Travis Parry 
Thank you dad, for teaching me these things and not letting me off the hook. But but loving me like there's a spot for love and mentorship. I think they can coexist. And I, I'm not the, you know, the author and the tender of, you know, this theory. But I do believe for me, as I've looked at everything, over, over my life span of of being a dad, having seven children, seeing one of them off and into the world, and, and also learning from, from great research and other people that if we're mentors and coaches, that's going to be the spot that we need to be in his dad's.

00;34;18;11 - 00;34;36;15
Paul Sullivan
Travis. Thank you. This has been wonderful having you on. One last question here, because you've done a lot of thinking on this. You've deceived a lot yourself. But, you know, I'll use your example of, you know, taking your kids skiing if you watch, you know, a downhill race, you watch the Olympics, you watch a World Cup type of level.

00;34;36;17 - 00;34;58;25
Paul Sullivan
Scary. The only people you see on TV are the ones who are skiing really well that day. They're a whole bunch of other amazing skiers who are having, an off day and they're struggling. They, you know, flew off the court or whatever. When you as a dad, you're talking a lot about, you know, the achievements, the balance you you've attained in your life and the good part with your kids.

00;34;58;27 - 00;35;15;14
Paul Sullivan
But what do you do when you make a mistake as a dad? When you're that that skier who goes off the course and is out, how do you come back from that? Because I think that'll be really helpful to the listeners, not just the everyday. Perfect. I got balance, but some days you're going to be out of balance.

00;35;15;14 - 00;35;22;27
Paul Sullivan
Some days you're going to make a mistake because you're human. What are some of those mistakes and how do you come back? You know, help the listener.

00;35;22;29 - 00;35;39;03
Travis Parry 
Brilliant. I kind of want to go back a little bit and I'll get to that. But I think that where most dads are that I work with, they're stuck in what I call the workaholic trap. It's that place you and I've been talking about for there a do it all a productive workaholic or even a personal developer. They're not really a balanced achiever, and they're stuck there.

00;35;39;03 - 00;36;01;18
Travis Parry 
And they need help. They need coaching out. As I've been able to help coach them out of this trap and to be a balanced individual. Now, now guess what? Now they have time to now start working on their goals and the way that they stay balanced, the way that they keep their balance, is by continually working toward their goals and their priorities.

00;36;01;20 - 00;36;18;21
Travis Parry 
If it's just as simple, let me help you out of the trap. And 90 days I've come back and found out that they've fallen back in. They fallen off the wagon. Yeah. So the whole idea of achieving balance is just to get you to the spot that. Now guess what? Now you actually have time to be a good dad.

00;36;18;24 - 00;36;22;15
Travis Parry 
Because that's what I found in my research, is that time is the fact. So now you.

00;36;22;15 - 00;36;27;07
Paul Sullivan
Have just the time to be a dad. Whether a good or bad dad, you're just actually there to be a dad.

00;36;27;14 - 00;36;45;09
Travis Parry 
Yes, Warren, I love that. Thank you. Paul, just time to be a dad, to be a spouse, to be, you know, healthy, to have a spiritual life. Like, those are the things that are the most important with people that I've seen in audiences around the country, even in, in Europe, I've tested these theories and, you know, so what?

00;36;45;09 - 00;37;08;18
Travis Parry 
So you make a mistake. Welcome to the club. I am not a perfect dad. Actually. There's some there's some billboards that I really do like. If you're driving up and down the Wasatch Front here in the I-15 corridor and by Salt Lake City, there's too many billboards, but one of them shows up and it it constantly reiterates this idea of, you don't have to be a perfect dad to be a good dad.

00;37;08;21 - 00;37;27;04
Travis Parry 
We need to get past this idea of like, well, I've got to do everything right. Well, if we did everything right, we'd never have children and we wouldn't learn. My poor oldest kids, like they have learned from some of the things my wife and I have experimented on. Right, right. Our youngest children hopefully were better.

00;37;27;08 - 00;37;33;12
Paul Sullivan
I mean, if number seven is not perfect, I mean, what happens to the rest of us have I mean it exactly.

00;37;33;14 - 00;37;49;25
Travis Parry 
But I will tell you this as I've learned and grow, when we're in the car, a lot of times we go on. We love to go on long road trips, and we don't have screens in our cars. None. We've never done it and we never will. What? What in the world do you do? We listen to stories.

00;37;49;25 - 00;38;10;20
Travis Parry 
We listen to books. Our kids learn with us. And quite often we're listening to parenting books and our kids are listening along. They're like, wait, what is that? Oh, that's so cool. And what's interesting about that is we're involving them in our learning. It's showing them that we're humble enough to have.

00;38;10;21 - 00;38;18;20
Paul Sullivan
Someone that's giving the playbook to the enemy. I don't like that. That's okay. Here's how you invade. What right here are all of our weaknesses.

00;38;18;23 - 00;38;36;01
Travis Parry 
Yeah, here's our game plan. And, you know, once you get past that, like we're on the same team, it's not parents versus kids. It's a family team. Once you get past this idea of, well, I've, you know, it's like, well, you have two kids. Oh, now we got to go man to man. Now you have three. Oh, is your zone defense.

00;38;36;01 - 00;38;53;07
Travis Parry 
No, it that's the wrong thinking. Yeah. You're off often the wrong. And I know it's just joking but in a sense like well we don't want to let our kids know what we're doing. Absolutely. You do you want to let them know very clearly this is your role. You're the child. I'm the parent. And, your role is to follow.

00;38;53;07 - 00;39;20;18
Travis Parry 
Do these things, be a contributor to our family. My role is to provide, to nurture, to help you grow. And guess what? We're in this together. We're on the same team. My kids know that. So they know if I mess up. It's not a war. It's not defense. And I think that generation before me and especially my parents, parents, that generation, very militaristic, very much war, right?

00;39;20;24 - 00;39;44;29
Travis Parry 
They grew up, they served in the military. They did go overseas on naval aircraft carriers. My grandpa did. And I had another grandpa that served in Germany post-World War Two. And I had to you know, keep the peace. Right. So I get it. It's that militaristic style. It does not work. It works very well. If you want to get your kids angry at you, resentment, hurtful, hatred, that works really well for that.

00;39;45;01 - 00;40;03;10
Travis Parry 
But if you want loving, nurturing children that respond to you and respect you, the best thing to do is realize you're on the same team. So my parents didn't do this very well and I love them. It doesn't matter what they did. I've had to forgive them of things and I move on. Why? Because I know that I'm not a perfect parent, right?

00;40;03;13 - 00;40;22;16
Travis Parry 
And I need to forgive them. Start there. Forgive your parents of things that they've done wrong to you. And I know that's a hard thing to do for a lot of people, and that's a whole other segment. But that's a really great principle to start with. Forgive, then be able to forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for when you screw up and then ask forgiveness.

00;40;22;22 - 00;40;24;13
Travis Parry 
I lose my temper sometimes. I'm not.

00;40;24;17 - 00;40;36;24
Paul Sullivan
Good. I do this a lot. Like when I lose it, I say like, I'm sorry, you know, go back out. I made a mistake. Yeah. This is exactly why I was anxious about this. And that happened. And I'm sorry.

00;40;36;26 - 00;40;58;07
Travis Parry 
100%, Paul. And you're a better man. Because it took me a long time for me to get there. And my wife and I had had lots of discussions, and we learned a lot and finalized, like, she really wants me to say sorry when I screwed up. And I realize my kids benefit for seeing their grown. Oh yeah, say, dude, I messed up.

00;40;58;09 - 00;41;03;03
Travis Parry 
That's not a weakness. It's humility. Meekness is not weakness.

00;41;03;03 - 00;41;13;05
Paul Sullivan
It's a strength. It shows that you have confidence that you can say, you know what, I made a mistake and let's talk about dad's mistake. Yeah. Because you're going to make mistakes because otherwise it's always it's yeah, I agree the hundred percent.

00;41;13;07 - 00;41;34;01
Travis Parry 
It's, you know, and I came into work this morning and I saw on this guy's dashboard and it had this pointed arrow my way. And underneath it another point arrow different way and said the highway. And I'm like that's a lot of times how parents hear it. It's my way or the highway, right? Yeah. Or that's the militaristic or there's the really like, let me befriend you and go to school with you and help you.

00;41;34;08 - 00;42;01;26
Travis Parry 
You're not teaching them like you're you're coddling this generation. Quit it. Stop it. Love them. Give them boundaries, teach them, expect greatness, and they will show up. Now, back to this idea then. Well, how do you do this? Well, if. If I have lost my temper and all the family saw. I gather the whole family and I say, I'm sorry I did this, I'm going to try to do better and you know this, this is what I need to work on.

00;42;01;28 - 00;42;26;14
Travis Parry 
If children, if they're getting out of line and they're out of the family rules and boundaries which you need to set, they need to be out there. You can't just expect them to figure it out. You need to tell them, and you need to tell them a lot of times, like over and over. But once they get outside of those family boundaries, you need to be able to have a system in place for consequences, good and bad.

00;42;26;18 - 00;42;45;15
Travis Parry 
When they do well, there needs to be great consequence for, you know, for them. And that might be just a hug, maybe a kiss, maybe I love you, great job. Maybe going out to dinner or whatever it is. But when they go outside of those boundaries they've done wrong. You need to be able to teach them and they need to know that that was not correct without yelling at them, putting them down, making them feel stupid.

00;42;45;15 - 00;43;04;07
Travis Parry 
We talk about bullying and all these things at school. What about in our own homes, our own families? Are we the bullies? Is that how we're raising our children? I don't think so. And when I've crossed those lines and when I've, you know, made it clear that I've gone outside of the role that I have as father and nurture and provider and all these things.

00;43;04;07 - 00;43;29;13
Travis Parry 
When I've messed up, when I've apologized, my kids know I'm working on it. They give me grace, they give me slack, and I give them slack, too, because I know they're working on their side of trying to grow, and their mind is developing in their body and their hormones and motions and needs, and it's changing. And as they grow and change, I look at them differently and help them in different forms or fashion.

00;43;29;20 - 00;43;52;22
Travis Parry 
The theory that I like to follow is, you know, is a look at a skyscraper as you build a skyscraper, as you build a building, you've got all of the scaffolding around the building. Okay. Well, at the very beginning, it's this hole in the ground, and then you build it up and the scaffolding grows and grows. You know, when it's super tall, you get the scaffolding reaches all the way up to the to the skyline.

00;43;52;24 - 00;44;11;26
Travis Parry 
But as it starts to finish, they start to take down the scaffolding. Right. There's no more scaffolding. There's no more cranes. There's no more big equipment. And maybe doing some finishing touches. A child is like that. I really believe in this idea. When they're young, there's a lot of help. There's a lot of scaffolding, there's a lot of, you know, attending to details.

00;44;11;26 - 00;44;30;00
Travis Parry 
But over time, you've got to let go. You've got to let go of some of the scaffolding as it becomes its own human being, its own, you know, building, so to speak. And you let them make more mistakes. In fact, they learn from those mistakes, and then they'll come back to you and say, dad, what did you do?

00;44;30;02 - 00;44;41;12
Travis Parry 
How did you do this? What about this? And now that they're parent, oh, boy, you know, you they come back to you more because they know you're going to continue to mentor them through your life.

00;44;41;15 - 00;44;54;05
Paul Sullivan
Doctor Travis Perry, thank you again, founder of the Make Time Institute and the author of Achieving Balance of thoroughly enjoyed having you on the Company Death podcast today.

00;44;54;08 - 00;45;04;04
Travis Parry 
Thank you, Paul, for for letting me be on and grab the book at Achieving Balance book RT.com for free. We'll ship it out to you guys. Thank you for being a great audience.

00;45;04;06 - 00;45;31;00
Paul Sullivan
Hey, thanks for listening to Company of Dads podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. But I'm here to tell you it's just one of the many offerings we have at the Company of Dads. We've got another podcast, we have a weekly newsletter, we have various features. We have events that we put on both online and in person. If you want to know about all of those, the best place to learn about them is to go to the company of dads.com backslash the dad.

00;45;31;00 - 00;45;44;19
Paul Sullivan
There's a company of dads.com backslash the dad. What do you get if you do that? That's how you sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Dad, which is a one stop shop for all things the dad. Thank you again for listening.