EP133: What To Do When Your Job Is Too Much

Interview with Steven Miyao / MidCareer Parent Coach

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Is there a greater challenge for a father than balancing a demanding career that is no longer as rewarding as it once was with being the involved parent that his children need? You want a change, but you have obligations. What do you do? Steven Miyao, a coach and father of two, takes fathers through a 'life-first approach'. Learn what that means and why total change isn't necessary.

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Transcript

00;00;00;03 - 00;00;38;25
Steven Miyao
And so it's important then to be able to actually have the space, the emotional space available for your kids. And so when, when, when dads have these feelings, which I think a lot of dads do because it is a demanding life. Take an inventory of all the things that you're doing. And take an inventory as we're taking that inventory try to understand really what's important to you.

00;00;38;27 - 00;01;01;08
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast. After 120 plus episodes we're doing something different this season. I'm still your host, Paul Sullivan. And we're still focused on lead dads, working moms, and how small changes at home or work can have a big impact on their lives. What's new is each episode now promises to deliver actionable advice on some area of concern at home or at work.

00;01;01;10 - 00;01;29;26
Paul Sullivan
Short. Direct. Again. Actionable. Five questions. Five answers. This week, our guest is Steven Miyao, an executive coach focused on helping mid-career professionals square what they're doing now with what they want to do. These are people, often parents, who have been successful in their careers, but now, a few decades in, are wondering what comes next. Yet they have families and obligations that might make a full scale pivot to something new difficult.

00;01;29;28 - 00;01;37;12
Paul Sullivan
This is where Stephen, a husband and father of two boys, comes in. Welcome, Steven, to the Company Dads podcast.

00;01;37;14 - 00;01;39;24
Steven Miyao
Thank you for having me, Paul.

00;01;39;26 - 00;01;45;22
Paul Sullivan
Question one why do people come to you so.

00;01;45;24 - 00;01;57;08
Steven Miyao
I think a lot of people in midlife, and I define midlife as a fairly broad range, so that somewhere, you know, in your 40s to, you know, 60s.

00;01;57;11 - 00;02;01;24
Paul Sullivan
You have clients you're going to live to be 120 years old.

00;02;01;27 - 00;02;27;07
Steven Miyao
Yes. That. Well, that's, that's that's actually a good point. And we'll, we'll maybe dive into that later too, is because that's the realization that a lot of people get to is that, oh, actually, I thought I'm in the middle, but there's actually only like a third left. Right. So so great great great point. So they what they realize is that they, they have they have aging parents that they have to take care of.

00;02;27;10 - 00;02;49;06
Steven Miyao
They have they still have to raise kids. They might still be at home or they might already have left, but they have financial and emotional responsibilities for for their kids. And then they have a super demanding job. And at that point, people are like, I don't I can't do it anymore. It's just it's just too much. I'm not fulfilled.

00;02;49;08 - 00;03;06;12
Steven Miyao
And then they come to me and say, Stephen, please help me. And it usually means that they've hit rock bottom. And I don't mean this from an AA standpoint, but I mean just from I just the status quo no longer works for me.

00;03;06;14 - 00;03;16;20
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. All right. Question two. You know, when these people come to you, how do you help them make the change that they want to make?

00;03;16;23 - 00;03;44;25
Steven Miyao
So the the the first thing that we do is we assess where they are today. What's your current situation? And what where is your energy going towards? Because what we find is that most people spend time on things that are actually not important to them. So we have to figure out where what where is the energy flowing from?

00;03;44;27 - 00;04;08;19
Steven Miyao
You know, from an from a, time commitment standpoint. And are these things that that excite me and that get me up in the morning, or are they draining my energy? And through that exercise, we identify really what's important to to to them. And then once we've identified what's important to them, then we can figure out what it is that they need to do.

00;04;08;21 - 00;04;24;28
Steven Miyao
Are there certain things that they might not have to do anymore? There's certain things that they want to lean in more to, and we can talk a little bit more, you know, in detail later. On, you know, specifically how that might affect certain dads, and their responsibilities here.

00;04;24;28 - 00;04;41;22
Paul Sullivan
But in general, let's just drill down on that a bit more. When you say, you know, spending time on things that don't really, you know, matter to them or don't fulfill them, I mean, that's part of life. I mean, you know, I, I was folding a duvet last night with my daughter. I got two full towels at some point tonight while I'm watching the news.

00;04;41;22 - 00;04;51;21
Paul Sullivan
I mean, nobody wants to do this. And so when you say things that would be a little bit more specific as to what those things are, I'm guessing they're not, you know, the typical, you know, chores of life.

00;04;51;23 - 00;05;02;21
Steven Miyao
Yeah. So, if you're, you know, I'm a working dad, and I, I spend, you know, probably.

00;05;02;23 - 00;05;36;17
Steven Miyao
Half of my waking hours, maybe. Not quite, a third, maybe on my waking hours raising kids. But in my, in my workday, I used to have to be in meetings, in zoom meetings, primarily for the last years for for hours on end. And what I realized was that it totally drained me. You know, it was it was these it was these meetings where there were 50 people on the on the call.

00;05;36;19 - 00;05;55;28
Steven Miyao
And, I had to pay attention because I would be called on with my expertise, but it might or might not happen. And it even if it did, it was maybe like, you know, a 5 minute or 2 minute part of the whole hour. And every time after this call, I was thinking to myself, I think I'm going to shoot myself.

00;05;55;28 - 00;06;22;17
Steven Miyao
This is like it. This is it's so, so draining. And and so that was an example of I, I can't do this anymore. I can have a life where I'm spending most of my waking hours on zoom, on meetings that actually don't pertain to me. And I'm sure a lot of your listeners can relate to this, because this is one of the all times big, big, big pain points that we have.

00;06;22;17 - 00;06;40;14
Steven Miyao
And so that that's one of the impetus for me, for me to have changed my life because I no longer wanted to live that life where I'm going to be on zoom most of my day, spending time listening to things that didn't really pertain me. But you have to be part of it.

00;06;40;16 - 00;06;48;06
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, but the way you got past that is you made this wholesale change in your life to focus more on being in the executive coach. Is that correct?

00;06;48;08 - 00;06;50;12
Steven Miyao
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

00;06;50;15 - 00;07;09;15
Paul Sullivan
Interesting. Like it? You know, we are the company dad podcast. So question number three, what are some tips you have to help fathers specifically balance demanding careers? You know, obligations that they have with being, you know, super involved dads.

00;07;09;18 - 00;07;29;26
Steven Miyao
I think this is such a is such an important question because I think a lot of dads do not take the time to actually think about it, right? They're just they just are grinding it out to say, I have these responsibilities. My wife has maybe a super big job and she she can't she can't be taking care of the kids.

00;07;30;01 - 00;07;52;25
Steven Miyao
And I'm going to carry it all. So I'm going to going to be successful. You know, going to be success in my workplace. And I'm going to be good at what I do. As a dad, the problem that I've experienced was I had these this really big job. I was I was traveling all around the world, and I wanted to be there for my kids.

00;07;52;28 - 00;08;18;20
Steven Miyao
And I was physically always there, but actually, emotionally, I was not available for my kids because I had, you know, thousands of employees who are reporting to me who all had issues, and I had to solve those issues all day long. And then I came home excited to see my kids and specifically teenagers, they don't really cooperate.

00;08;18;22 - 00;08;40;18
Steven Miyao
And so so they're not just like, hey, dad, you know, let's have a great conversation about, you know, my day and, you know, feelings. It's mostly, you know, non engagement engagement and and because of that non engagement I was often happy when they wanted to just go to their room and did their own thing because I was so exhausted.

00;08;40;20 - 00;09;08;14
Steven Miyao
And so it's important then to be able to actually have the space the emotional space available for your kids. And so when, when, when dads have these feelings, which I think a lot of dads do because it is a demanding life. Take an inventory of all the things that you're doing. And take an inventory. We're taking that inventory.

00;09;08;21 - 00;09;14;08
Steven Miyao
Try to understand really what's important to you.

00;09;14;10 - 00;09;42;21
Steven Miyao
And you can then create three core buckets. One is I'm no longer going to do that right. And so bucket number two is I'm going to outsource that have somebody else do that right. So going back to your folding laundry, maybe I'm going to say I'm going to send my laundry out and have somebody else do it. And you know, and people are going to say, well, you know, it's going to cost a lot of money.

00;09;42;23 - 00;10;05;01
Steven Miyao
That money is well spent. Because if that is what you hate doing, you're going to have the energy to be able to be available for your kids and do the things that you are doing with your kids in the right way. And I think that that's that's a big challenge for for our society is because we're trying to do everything.

00;10;05;03 - 00;10;22;11
Steven Miyao
And when you try, when you do everything, you actually do nothing really well and you're dissatisfied and, and your, your kids, you know, are, you know, I'm not getting what they need. Your, your spouse is not getting what, what she needs. And just life overall it just becomes very difficult.

00;10;22;14 - 00;10;43;21
Paul Sullivan
It's such an important point you make there. You know, there's a sort of myth of the multitasker. And the research shows that really only about 2% of people in the entire world can multitask, so that means 98% are just doing multiple things badly, at the same time. But the story you tell about, you know, still having so much of your brain space occupied by work, by other people's problems.

00;10;43;21 - 00;11;16;06
Paul Sullivan
You know, last year we did, a limited run series called The Dead Diaries, in which we followed this one, dad, Skip, Sherry Holmes, who's a very well known bluegrass musician, he now does all of our social media, but we followed him as he made this transition from guy touring 200 plus days a year to lead that. And one of the things he told us, you know, before he came to work for us, was that he had a very similar experience to what you had, that even when he was home, the 160 days a year that he was home, as opposed to 200, he was touring, he was thinking about touring, and his children would

00;11;16;06 - 00;11;32;28
Paul Sullivan
come up to him. They talked to him and his kids are young and he was still occupied. Like you know, how much is it going to cost to put fuel in the bus? Are all the guys going to be there? Where are we going to stay when we get there? What are some of the things that you did personally, and what are some of the things that you share with individual dads when they need that break?

00;11;32;28 - 00;12;00;07
Paul Sullivan
Because in some ways, you know, going to an office and coming home, you least had, the physical break of your commute. Now, more and more, if we're working in another room of our home and then going full on into the rest of our lives, that there isn't that that that sort of buffer zone. So what did you do and how do you coach, you know, other dad, to come up with a way to, to create that break in that space?

00;12;00;10 - 00;12;21;02
Steven Miyao
It's it's a it's an important question. I think that a lot of people always look for a quick fix. You know, what's the one trick or, you know, Instagram always tells you, like, you know, do this one thing or TikTok, right? Whatever, whatever that might be. And there is no, there's no there's no easy way to do this.

00;12;21;05 - 00;12;48;12
Steven Miyao
So. So what what dads have to do is they have to really do the work to understand what is important to them so that they can then actually make a pivot if necessary, because the the current life that they have is no longer sustainable. And so this pivot might mean that you're going to be working remotely. Right. So you don't have to go.

00;12;48;19 - 00;13;14;12
Steven Miyao
You have to spend time in the office. Or it might mean that you are working part time, or it might mean that you are doing something totally different. Right? So that's that's how I decided that I wanted to be a coach, I think also, and it is much more fulfilling to me because in in the second part of my career, it's much more about me helping others than me accelerating my own career.

00;13;14;12 - 00;13;45;05
Steven Miyao
And I'm sure that a lot of people who are listening can, can can relate to that. But, this life enables me to spend time with my kids, right? So I have a special needs son who is lovely and and inspirational, but is it's a handful now. He's is essentially like having a perpetual two year old. And so, today, my nanny is is sick.

00;13;45;08 - 00;14;06;18
Steven Miyao
And, and we have, you know, we have a school potluck. And so because I'm a coach, I was able to reschedule my, my clients today. And I was able I'm able to go to the school. I was able to this morning make mac and cheese that I'm going to bring to, to the potluck.

00;14;06;21 - 00;14;31;23
Steven Miyao
And, I don't have to stress about not being able to answer to emails or text, and this pivot allowed me to be able to do that. And so there's no easy fix. If this life no longer works for you because it's too stressful, make a pivot.

00;14;31;25 - 00;14;55;25
Paul Sullivan
That's great. You know, question for, you know, we all want to be fulfilled. Many of us would like to be able to make a pivot if we could. But, you know, I'm sure there's some listeners out there saying, yeah, this is great for Paul, it's great for Stephen. But, you know, I make eggs and my family depends on me making X, or even worse, I make X and my family spends X plus Y.

00;14;55;27 - 00;15;12;01
Paul Sullivan
How could I ever pivot so the question question for is, you know, how do you help dads, you know, balance what they want to do with what they need to do to sustain the the family structure that they've they've helped create?

00;15;12;04 - 00;15;48;07
Steven Miyao
Yeah, there are definitely dads that have multiple jobs and is struggling to put food on the table for their family. It's it's very hard. It's very hard to to to get balance when you when you're just struggling to survive. There are so many people that actually don't struggle to survive, but they think that they're struggling to survive because they are part of the hamster wheel.

00;15;48;09 - 00;16;35;14
Steven Miyao
So what happens when you're in mid-career or midlife that you have to think about? What a has my has my definition of success changed? Or actually, maybe some people have never actually thought about what their definition of success was, but I actually need to think to myself, what is my current definition of success? And so what I find with a lot of my clients is that they're saying my current definition of success is not any more gaining a bigger title, making more money, climbing up the corporate ladder.

00;16;35;16 - 00;16;52;12
Steven Miyao
They're actually saying that no, that's actually not important to me anymore. So that means I can actually make less money. I do not have to have the big title, because the title that I most cherish is actually dad.

00;16;52;14 - 00;17;15;25
Paul Sullivan
I like it, it's great. Question five and this is something that, that when you and I were talking before you, you brought up and kind of I'm fascinated by it. But you have this theory called the life First Approach to work. And I like that because, just like the phrasing, because we so often we talk about work life balance, work life integration, you know, work life sway.

00;17;15;27 - 00;17;25;25
Paul Sullivan
But you have this theory of the life first approach to work. What is it and how does it get implemented for work and dads.

00;17;25;28 - 00;17;56;26
Steven Miyao
So there, there there is no separation between between life and work. Work is needs to be part of life. And so what most people have done is they've picked a career and then tried to fit their life around their career. That means kids, wife, most likely your health goes to, you know, the wayside. You no longer have friends.

00;17;56;28 - 00;18;20;06
Steven Miyao
And I think specifically for men and for dads, that's a very difficult one. A lot of a lot of men have very few real friends. Right. What a real friend is, is, is somebody that is totally useless to them from a monetary standpoint. Right? It's just somebody that is just there because you you like them. And so all of these things, fall to the wayside.

00;18;20;06 - 00;18;44;05
Steven Miyao
Or are you trying to fit them in? Right. And it shouldn't really be the other way around. It should be what do I want my life to be? I want to be. I want to be a good dad. I want to be available, emotionally available for my children, for my wife. I want to be able to provide for my family, and I want to be healthy.

00;18;44;05 - 00;19;02;19
Steven Miyao
So I need to exercise. I need to eat well, I need to sleep. I need to have at least seven hours of sleep. Yeah. How many dads specifically when they have young kids I able to do that. And so on. So on. Right. So all of these things you need to identify and say these are the things that are important.

00;19;02;19 - 00;19;33;11
Steven Miyao
And then what kind of career can I have to support this kind of lifestyle. And luckily today with with technology and with this portfolio approach to to working, there are a lot of different options that people have. Most people don't think of those options because they are stuck in their career, right? So they they started out as a, let's say, junior financial advisor, you know, on a financial advisor team.

00;19;33;13 - 00;20;05;16
Steven Miyao
And then they, you know, they grow up and they, rise in the ranks and then they become a financial advisor. And then maybe they're going to become, you know, a manager, and then they're going to, you know, grow up and go into to management of the company. And that's just what they think they need to do. But it is important to understand that, no, you don't have to do that, because actually that doesn't give you the satisfaction that you want because you want to have all of these things.

00;20;05;19 - 00;20;27;13
Steven Miyao
And so this life first approach enables people to rethink how they are living. And hopefully through that rethinking and, and a process of going through of, of of executing on, on that. Actually living much more satisfied lives for themselves, but also for the people that they love.

00;20;27;15 - 00;20;47;12
Paul Sullivan
I can imagine when you present this to a lot of your clients, that there's, you know, perhaps a sense of guilt that, you know, can I really do this for myself? I have this obligation to other people, you know, where were you when I was 22 years old and picking in, stumbling into this career that I've now had success at at 42, 52, 62.

00;20;47;15 - 00;20;58;27
Paul Sullivan
How do you help them get past that, that guilt, if they are, you know, making a fundamental change to their careers and to to who they are?

00;20;58;29 - 00;21;02;28
Steven Miyao
I think actually it's not so much guilt as it is fear.

00;21;03;01 - 00;21;04;11
Paul Sullivan
Okay.

00;21;04;14 - 00;21;29;19
Steven Miyao
So I mean humans are conditioned to fear. So if we even if everything goes well we still are afraid of things because you know, when, when we think back, you know, thousands of years ago, the humans that were fearful, the ones that survived, the ones that, you know, we're not fearful, they froze in the, you know, in the winter, they didn't have, you know, enough food.

00;21;29;22 - 00;22;01;13
Steven Miyao
The wolf got them, etc.. Right. So, so we're conditioned to fear. And so even if we have a good life, yeah, we still fear that we don't have enough. And so, a lot of my clients are in that situation where they think that they can't do it, and they think that they would shortcut their family or even also, a lot of times the parents of my clients are like, why are you doing this?

00;22;01;16 - 00;22;25;03
Steven Miyao
Why are you leaving your your big corporate job? You know, because they don't understand that you can actually have a life first approach. So a lot of outside people will come in and not not they don't want to, but they will make you feel bad about the choices that you do or question. You know that you're doing it.

00;22;25;05 - 00;22;43;22
Steven Miyao
Just work another five more years. Don't give up that big bonus that you're going to be able to get, you know, and you know, my favorite one is, you know, the companies always give you these stock options. But, you know, if you're lucky, and then and then they always roll over. Right. And so you continue to think, well, I can leave now.

00;22;43;22 - 00;23;12;19
Steven Miyao
I can leave now. I can now. And that's exactly the intent of of these plans. And so it is really the fear rather than the guilt. And overcoming that fear is very difficult. It's very challenging. And, and, you know, one of my clients had said to me, he his approach to that is that he creates new dreams.

00;23;12;21 - 00;23;51;04
Steven Miyao
And so when you when this dream that you currently had that no longer works, then he lets go of that dream and creates a new dream, and that's enables him to overcome the fear, because now he's looking at all the opportunities that this new life will bring, rather than the threats that that new life brings. And I think that that's what most people are experiencing is that they they live a life of what will I lose, rather than a life of what will I gain?

00;23;51;07 - 00;24;07;00
Paul Sullivan
Stephen. Me? Yeah. Oh. Executive coach based in New York City. Thank you so much for being my guest on the coveted dad podcast. One last simple question how do people find you? How do people get in touch with you so they can avail themselves of of your excellent services?

00;24;07;03 - 00;24;32;21
Steven Miyao
Yeah, you can you can find me on, on YouTube. And there I have, I have a podcast called The Myth, The Midlife Remix, where I interview people who made this kind of pivot, in their lives, successfully. And also, you can come to, to my, to my website, which is coaching Meadows two t.com or just look me up on LinkedIn.

00;24;32;23 - 00;24;49;11
Steven Miyao
Happy to talk to you. And, thank you for having me on this podcast. I think it's a very important message that you're bringing to a lot of dads. And more and more dads are experiencing, you know, these challenges. So thank you for doing this.

00;24;49;14 - 00;24;52;18
Paul Sullivan
Thank you again, Stephen. This has been great. I really appreciate it.

00;24;52;20 - 00;24;55;11
Steven Miyao
Thank you.

00;24;55;14 - 00;25;20;25
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the Company of Dads podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do at the Company of Dads. Possible. Helder Moura, who is our audio producer Lindsay Decker, handles all of our social media. Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition, Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me.

00;25;20;25 - 00;25;38;15
Paul Sullivan
And many of the things that we do here at the company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, The Dad. Sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.