EP139: 5 Tips For Being an Entrepreneurial Lead Dad

Interview with Mike Malloy / Founder of Malloy Industries

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Parents have two resources they are always trying to protect and secure - time and money. As a Lead Dad, Mike Malloy structured his work life around reserving time for his family and fatherly duties. After creating a process to keep life on track domestically, he applied the same principles to Malloy Industries and was able to help other companies save time and money while operating more efficiently. What’s his secret? Listen to this week’s episode for actionable advice.

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Transcript

00;00;00;07 - 00;00;16;03
Mike Malloy
And so like in the mornings where the house wakes up is maker time, you can get into deep work. Just do the stuff you have to talk to. People have meetings like I've like once the first meeting of the day hits, it's just flitting between the different meetings. And I've got 30 minutes before this thing and yeah, you know, I got a 15 minute window here, okay.

00;00;16;05 - 00;00;35;13
Mike Malloy
And you're doing email and you're just triaging stuff. It's not the deep work. And so if you can take a project that's going to require a bunch of deep work, which is definitely a scarce resource and is like humans brains have like max 3 to 5 hours of capacity a day for that.

00;00;35;15 - 00;00;58;03
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dad's 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;00;58;06 - 00;01;24;12
Paul Sullivan
Short. Direct. Again. Actionable. Five questions. Five answers. Today, our guest is Mike Malloy. He's an entrepreneur dad, adjunct professor at Georgetown and a founder of Malloy Industries, which finds fractional executives for companies. In other words, he's selling time to people who need more of it. In a previous, pre-COVID life. Mike coached the Georgetown Men's Ultimate Frisbee Club team.

00;01;24;17 - 00;01;35;03
Paul Sullivan
He's married with a son who is three, and he's coming to us live from the beach in Delaware. Mike, welcome to the company dad's podcast.

00;01;35;05 - 00;01;46;21
Mike Malloy
Thanks, Paul. I appreciate you having me here. And, excited for the conversation today. And I want to start just by asking you an important question. Do you know why humans can't hear dog whistles?

00;01;46;23 - 00;01;49;10
Paul Sullivan
No. No, Mike, I do not.

00;01;49;12 - 00;01;54;26
Mike Malloy
Well, it's because dogs don't know how to whistle.

00;01;54;29 - 00;02;02;13
Paul Sullivan
Mike, you did, describe yourself as a connoisseur of dad jokes. And so that's a that's a solid one.

00;02;02;15 - 00;02;10;24
Mike Malloy
That's what I'm going to. I'm going to sprinkle them in throughout, like, you know, I might just ask you, hey, hey, do you know how much rainbows weigh?

00;02;10;26 - 00;02;13;29
Paul Sullivan
No, no, no, Mike I don't how much do they way.

00;02;14;02 - 00;02;20;07
Mike Malloy
Not much. They're pretty light.

00;02;20;09 - 00;02;48;00
Paul Sullivan
I don't even know how we're going to get to the five questions today, Mike, but we're going to do our best. So question one, in a recent podcast, we talked to this, amazing, woman, former, senior political official in Washington, DC, who wrote a book talking about, entrepreneurs and passion and the regrets that parents had parenthood raised entrepreneurs.

00;02;48;02 - 00;03;13;19
Paul Sullivan
And one of the things that she said is that, you know, kids who turned out being entrepreneurs had a really, really deep passion for something when they were growing up may not have been the thing that they eventually did later on. But, you know, you had your own entrepreneurial journey. And I'm wondering, you know, was there something besides dad jokes, that you were super passionate about early on that that guided your your early foray into being an entrepreneur?

00;03;13;22 - 00;03;38;00
Mike Malloy
Great question. And I think absolutely, there are things that in my childhood shaped, my, my first entrepreneurial journey was as the CEO of a social enterprise sunglasses company, Weybourne Sunglasses. And part of the reason that I love sunglasses was because I also grew up a from the Orlando Swim Club, went there all day, every day as a kid, and was on the swim team.

00;03;38;02 - 00;03;52;25
Mike Malloy
And I was actually the lead fundraiser for the swim team swim often almost every summer as I just go door to door and I knock on every single house and say, hey, you want to pay me for the swim team? $0.05 or $0.10 for every last? I can swim in an hour and raised a bunch of money.

00;03;52;27 - 00;04;11;25
Mike Malloy
I also worked as a lifeguard for six years there, and I always had the funky like dollar store sunglasses, neon colors with different outfits. And so when I heard about it, body Mind starting this sunglass company was like, yeah, like, what can I do to help? The other thing growing up was I love video games, and so it's really good with math and computer science.

00;04;11;25 - 00;04;32;01
Mike Malloy
I studied in college and Deloitte helped pay for me to go to Georgetown to get my master's in computer science. So while I was a grad school, I had some some extra time over the summer. And that's how I got involved with the sunglass company as like the tech guy that then turned into the business model, and guy that actually bought the company from the founder and ran it for another five years or so.

00;04;32;03 - 00;04;36;28
Paul Sullivan
Interesting. So it all started with swimming and I guess squinting. Is that fair to say?

00;04;37;01 - 00;04;40;14
Mike Malloy
Oh, swimming is going to. Yeah, I'll take, that's for sure.

00;04;40;17 - 00;04;46;25
Paul Sullivan
How many? I mean, what was your record for most laps in an hour?

00;04;46;27 - 00;04;54;06
Mike Malloy
I have no idea, to be honest with you. And this is probably like middle school. Mike. I'm picturing,

00;04;54;09 - 00;05;13;13
Mike Malloy
Maybe like 50. I'm not sure, but I know I definitely raised enough money that they team made money and also bought me a stereo. One summer they bought me a VCR. Like, I got good prizes on top of all of the money that I raised from the neighborhood. I even got one time I knocked on the swim coach's house and her mom answered.

00;05;13;15 - 00;05;20;27
Mike Malloy
And she knew her daughter, who coached the swim team but didn't tell me that and sponsored me, for, I think, you know, $0.20 a lap. So yeah.

00;05;21;00 - 00;05;38;17
Paul Sullivan
I, you know, follow up question and question one, we talked about this before we came on air and that was, you know, this Italian sunglass company, it taught you a lot of things. That's how you, you know, went on to become an entrepreneur residence at Georgetown. But it wasn't one of those stories where you made a good jillion dollars upon exit.

00;05;38;17 - 00;05;58;01
Paul Sullivan
And I'd love for you to if you're okay with that, tell a bit more about that, because there's such a confirmation bias when you talk to entrepreneurs or like, I have just mastered the universe and I am a millionaire. But of course, many entrepreneurial ventures, don't make people good millionaires. Many of them don't make money.

00;05;58;02 - 00;05;58;16
Mike Malloy
You confirm?

00;05;58;23 - 00;06;09;01
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And, but they all teach, lessons. So what were some of those, you know, lessons that you got out of it and just talk about what happened with that, you know, Italian sunglass company.

00;06;09;03 - 00;06;30;00
Mike Malloy
Yeah, absolutely. I think, one key lesson is if you ever have to give someone bad news, like, instead of having a fluffy conversation for 20 minutes at the end being like, oh, by the way, here's the bad news. I got to go by. That's conversation by saying, hey, Paul, sorry, go ahead and rip the Band-Aid off. And when you frame it that way, people know that the hair on their arm is going to get pulled off.

00;06;30;00 - 00;06;49;08
Mike Malloy
It's gonna be a little uncomfortable and what I learned in my journey was that, you know, we had a great product, we had a social mission, we had a lot of sunglasses during the summer. We even raised, you know, one half $1 million from a bunch of investors. But ultimately there are for profits. There are nonprofits, you know, there are no profits.

00;06;49;11 - 00;07;09;15
Mike Malloy
And at 30, I crashed and burned and went bankrupt. I learned that you should not schedule your convertible notes to mature on your 30th birthday, because that was the official day we defaulted on everything and had to have a lot of, humbling conversations with investors before that. And I led all of those conversations with the, hey, I just want to go ahead and rip the Band-Aid off.

00;07;09;18 - 00;07;30;17
Mike Malloy
Now, Weybourne, Inc. is going to file for chapter seven business bankruptcy. There's no financial return on your investment. The only silver lining is I'll write you a letter about capital losses and all of that stuff. But, hey, let's spend the next 20 minutes talking about what we tried. And we did have some impact and helping a lot of people see those domestically and internationally and, where we go from here.

00;07;30;20 - 00;07;52;10
Mike Malloy
And so I have a lot of empathy for entrepreneurs. I also really appreciated, like, there's a lot of friends and family and some angel investors who supported me. I sat on the front of, like, the risky investment. I don't want your life savings, your kid's college fund like. And if it falls apart, I just want to go to, like, sit down, have a drink and be buddies.

00;07;52;13 - 00;08;13;06
Mike Malloy
And I'm happy to say that 24 of the 27 investors I'm so good friends with. And you know, one of me inside, like, well, you'd have to do way more than lose money to like, impact our relationship. And that meant a lot to me. And many who were just, texting the other day, and, he's pregnant with his first kid.

00;08;13;09 - 00;08;29;21
Mike Malloy
And so I got a few year head start and was able to share some, you know, new dads resources. I've typed up advice for men with a pregnant wife, because one of the things that I found, I was like, oh, your life changes. We have a kid like, your life changes when your wife gets pregnant and you don't know that.

00;08;29;21 - 00;08;42;06
Mike Malloy
And there's not a lot of support or like training, coaching. People don't even tell you. Like, what products do you need to be a dad? And so I got some advice together and happy to share that.

00;08;42;09 - 00;08;45;05
Paul Sullivan
You don't need a lot of sunglasses when you're a dad. I can do that.

00;08;45;08 - 00;08;48;04
Mike Malloy
Now. You just sleep anywhere you can really go outside.

00;08;48;04 - 00;09;10;26
Paul Sullivan
And if you're outside, you're happy and you're okay squinting because you're not going to be. Yeah. So, you know, question two kind of dovetails off. One of the things you just said there, you know, how did you know your wife becoming pregnant and you then becoming a father. How did that change the way you look at work?

00;09;10;29 - 00;09;22;08
Mike Malloy
It changes everything about the way I look at work. I've been very hardworking, industrious most of my life. Sort of career, you know, since.

00;09;22;08 - 00;09;24;28
Paul Sullivan
Sixth grade, swimming labs for.

00;09;24;29 - 00;09;45;10
Mike Malloy
You know, candy bars, man. Yeah, I was good at it. No, but I think it made me realize that I wanted to work as little as possible to spend as much time as possible with my son and my wife into, like, the nurturing of them and a nurturing father. Those are themes. And I get daily affirmations about the word nurture.

00;09;45;10 - 00;10;01;06
Mike Malloy
That was my my word for the year last year. Yeah. I'm just like, how can I support and care for these people that I love without working till ten, 11, one in the morning, two in the morning? But really time boxing it and like learning how to be efficient and jobs.

00;10;01;06 - 00;10;05;12
Paul Sullivan
That describe that term for our listeners that, you know, kind of unpack the time box term.

00;10;05;15 - 00;10;24;06
Mike Malloy
For sure. So there's a the floor somebody made up groove, I don't know, that time expands to fit. The amount of work expands to fit the amount of time you allocate to it. And so if I only give myself 60 minutes to write an email newsletter, I know I have to push send at the end of the 60 minutes.

00;10;24;06 - 00;10;47;18
Mike Malloy
Like, is it something I take that long? But I got a few weeks. I'll do it here and there. You know, I can kind of laissez faire. I can context switch, I can watch a tabs open and be distracted like and then I got to when it's work time, I got to get into flow. And you know, I have a, a couple different Spotify playlists where like the first five seconds of the song, it just trains my brain, like, all right, headphones and like, let's go, I'm going to work.

00;10;47;20 - 00;11;06;20
Mike Malloy
I'm going to get up, maybe the 25 or 50 minutes to go check on the family, you know, and, and for the first couple years of my life, I was the primary caregiver. So, like, I would get up super early in the morning. I wasn't on my shift and work until the house woke up, and then I'd be on dad mode until naptime.

00;11;06;22 - 00;11;23;12
Mike Malloy
So I did no meetings. That was on the computer. You know, I was just I'm with my son. We go to the library at the beach. And I had to be very thoughtful about who did I want to meet with? If I only had the 2 to 5 window like Susie woke up, I. Was it done? Like there was no more work, you know, it was.

00;11;23;15 - 00;11;40;27
Mike Malloy
Let me just go be a dad again. Once my wife was working full time and she had to work at a company. You couldn't really have a baby in meetings. So, you know, he did. I guess there are periods where he would make cameos and, you know, he is very lovingly referred to as our chief cuteness officer, Oracle Industries.

00;11;41;00 - 00;11;56;08
Mike Malloy
To put a bow on that at the time. Boxing. It's small boxes, focused work on that thing and not a bunch of other things. And like, don't check your emails. Just like do the things that you can do and then systematize and delegate all the other stuff.

00;11;56;12 - 00;12;20;27
Paul Sullivan
When you became the lead dad, devoting all of your time or all but, you know, three hours a day of your time to your family, how did that conversation come about? Did you put your hand up and say, I want to do it was a conversation you and your wife had? Was it just something where you could be, you know, the master time boxer and could get some stuff done in those three hours.

00;12;20;27 - 00;12;24;18
Paul Sullivan
And the other day, how did that come to be?

00;12;24;21 - 00;12;34;12
Mike Malloy
Yeah, I definitely leaned into it. It wasn't like I was like, I had to or anything like that. I think.

00;12;34;15 - 00;12;55;12
Mike Malloy
After my mom passed me, kind of she was pregnant. There was like a seven months of pregnancy. And I really viewed that as a sprint to, like, get a business that could run without me doing all of the things and brought on some folks on the team to help me. And I realized that, like, I wanted to take paternity leave like he was due Cinco de Mayo.

00;12;55;12 - 00;13;15;00
Mike Malloy
So like, I knew the month of May, like I was going to work at all, or as little as possible. And I had to do a little bit of George and stuff in there because I was teaching and had to get folks ready for the summer semester. But I built a whole automated system for Georgetown and enrolling students in my startup internship seminar course to use Airtable and some technology to, like, not have to be in the weeds of all of that.

00;13;15;02 - 00;13;37;19
Mike Malloy
And that has paid dividends every semester since then because it's still up and running. I teach it three times a year, and it's it's pretty efficient. And we also realize that, like, my wife has always been the primary breadwinner and it didn't make sense. Like that was maybe four months, five months into animal industries when, can't she was pregnant.

00;13;37;21 - 00;13;56;12
Mike Malloy
So, like, I wasn't making a ton of money. She had kind of, you know, like. Yeah, like the try for the summer. Let's see what happens. And, like, pretty good for the summer. I keep going. You know, it has taken a while to, like, generate enough money for her to eventually leave her job, which she did last summer.

00;13;56;14 - 00;14;13;29
Mike Malloy
And so the initial decision, though, was like, yeah, I want to do this. Like, I want to care for him. Like, I'm excited to be a dad. This sounds awesome. I love my dad just enough to be a role model for me. You know, and he's, you know, taught me important life lessons. And, like, when I'm.

00;14;13;29 - 00;14;20;11
Mike Malloy
You actually tell me why it was that the chicken fell on the. Well, do you know why the chicken fell in the. Well?

00;14;20;14 - 00;14;27;21
Paul Sullivan
I've been wanting to know, like, it's it's one of those great sort of existential questions to why Mike, did the chicken fall into the. Well?

00;14;27;24 - 00;14;31;12
Mike Malloy
Because the chicken couldn't see that. Well.

00;14;31;14 - 00;14;34;02
Paul Sullivan
This is not bad. These are not. You may.

00;14;34;04 - 00;14;35;23
Mike Malloy
Deserve that sort.

00;14;35;26 - 00;15;06;08
Paul Sullivan
Of dad jokes. Yeah. I'm gonna say wow. Okay. That the could not see that. Well, Question three time is our biggest issue as working parents. We don't have enough of it. You talked about time. Boxing is one of your strategies. But how? You know, did you know, how does Malloy Industries look to help? You know, entrepreneurs, you know, executives, some portion of whom are parent moms and dads?

00;15;06;10 - 00;15;17;12
Paul Sullivan
How does it look to help them with time? I mean, your computer science guy, did you like can you add time to their day? Like, do they have like 27 hour days or something like that or what? What do you do there?

00;15;17;15 - 00;15;38;25
Mike Malloy
So there are basically five resources. There's time, attention, money, energy and effort. And to buy back time you need to allocate, another resource. And in some cases it's money because you can pay people who cost less than it cost you. You know what your value of an hour is? Do a task. Then you can get more time.

00;15;38;25 - 00;15;46;20
Mike Malloy
There's also a mental model to recognize that 80% done by somebody else is 100% fricking awesome.

00;15;46;22 - 00;15;48;16
Paul Sullivan
What if they suck at what they're doing now?

00;15;48;19 - 00;16;25;05
Mike Malloy
Well, then that's not off. And that's not the right who. Because there's also the the shift from instead of asking, how do I solve this? It's who can solve this. So who? Not how. That's a great Dan Sullivan Ben Hardy book that really shifts to looking at, you know, leveraging other people's expertise and experience and skill sets. Because if you look at all the things you're doing, there's, you know, your zone of genius, you what you're really great at and your, your skills and all these things, there's a bunch of stuff you're doing, especially as an entrepreneur that like, not that good at it, but I just do all the things because that's what I

00;16;25;05 - 00;16;41;03
Mike Malloy
do as a dad, as an entrepreneur, like, oh, I'll figure it out. But what if you could find somebody who, instead of it taking you, like 40 hours banging your head against a wall for a couple months, like figuring this thing out, here's hire them and they do it in like, ten hours because they've done it seven times and they've failed four times.

00;16;41;03 - 00;16;59;08
Mike Malloy
They figure it out now they're like pretty good at it and they just give you a playbook, framework, roadmap for your business. And that way you're not having to also find a deep work time because there's this concept of like make our time versus manage your time. And so like in the mornings where the house wakes up is maker time, you can get into deep work.

00;16;59;08 - 00;17;14;15
Mike Malloy
Just do the stuff you have to talk to. People have meetings like I'm like once the first meeting of the day hits, it's just flitting between the different meetings. And I've got 30 minutes before this thing and yeah, you know, I got a 15 minute window here, okay. And you're doing email and you just triaging stuff. It's not the deep work.

00;17;14;17 - 00;17;32;10
Mike Malloy
And so if you can take a project that's going to require a bunch of deep work, which is definitely a scarce resource and is like humans brains have like max 3 to 5 hours of capacity a day for that. You trade that and say, hey, let's spend one hour a week on me with this guy who's like, way smarter than me, who's doing this stuff in their own deep work blocks.

00;17;32;12 - 00;17;54;27
Mike Malloy
And I can put that one hour block wherever I want, typically in the afternoon. I recommend starting schedule meetings at like 430 or 4:00 and then 333, like work at the end of your day, backwards to protect that morning, to have it be meeting free for as long as possible. Yeah. The meetings for 11, expert with me, chief of staff to go over some stuff.

00;17;55;00 - 00;18;14;15
Mike Malloy
What that does is it creates this space where, like, even if I have morning family time and get them out for breakfast type things, they're still focused computer work. And the help that we'll industry is brings with these for actual executives is like they're going to go and do the work. You're going to do like an hour week to meet with them and kind of monitor their progress.

00;18;14;17 - 00;18;34;18
Mike Malloy
We've also found that communication is really important. People need to know, like what's going on, like Ma, the meatloaf, like, who's you doing back there like that? Not is not a good, relationship with a remote, team member, whether they're full time or fraction executive. And so we have something called the end of week report and the Loi way all of our fractional is on Friday.

00;18;34;18 - 00;18;54;17
Mike Malloy
The email, the client email me which your staff. Here's what I did this week. Here's I'm doing next week with key meetings action items. Now here's what I need from you client that I'm stuck on. I need you to review this thing or give me access to the system. And here's my upcoming scheduling constraints. Because I work with a couple other clients, I'm busy, you know, next Wednesday and Thursday, and in three weeks it's my wedding anniversaries.

00;18;54;17 - 00;19;25;11
Mike Malloy
I'm taking the day off. And when that is consistently communicated, you can trust that people are doing a good job and we found that really unlocks people's ability to like, not work. Late to go coach Johnny's soccer team at after work or not feeling good to be glued to your laptop on Saturday and Sunday. But like you present with your family and go to the zoo or, you know, church or whatever you guys want to do that's really powerful.

00;19;25;14 - 00;19;31;23
Paul Sullivan
You know, I was hoping you I was hoping you're going to tell me that you had, like, a fractional soccer coach, because I really suck at soccer.

00;19;31;25 - 00;19;53;29
Mike Malloy
That would be a don't. But boy, can I not wait until I can be a soccer coach. I mean, I coached Solomon Frisbee for several years like my coach. I love coaching and I love it. And the way to teach, I guess in this case, young boys. But like I taught 18 to 22 year old men, like how to be on a team, how to be a leader, how to overcome adversity.

00;19;54;02 - 00;20;17;21
Mike Malloy
Like, yeah, the physical competition is cool, but it's really the communication, collaboration, relationships, leadership. And when I look back on my life, like when my best friends growing up was my broccoli, no, it was dad was our soccer coach from like kindergarten to eighth grade. He was also a teacher and a teacher and a coach. I'm like, oh, Mr. Baby, tell me some good stuff that, I certainly have tried to live out, and in my whole life.

00;20;17;24 - 00;20;45;24
Paul Sullivan
One, you know, like a question. Three a on on the issue of time, you know, entrepreneurs are the stereotype is is while they focus on what they're doing, micromanaging, being in the weeds, doing everything parents kind of the same way. So these two groups that are hyper focused on what they're doing believe that, you know, they're doing it, but how do you get to them and say, look, you are really good at the following things as an entrepreneur, as a parent.

00;20;45;24 - 00;21;05;13
Paul Sullivan
But there are other things where you know and you enjoy those things. Why don't you try to do more of those things? But there are things that you know you don't enjoy and therefore you're probably not as good at. We can give you some some time back. How do you have that conversation to convince those people that they want to take a chance on a fraction of whatever?

00;21;05;15 - 00;21;26;04
Mike Malloy
Absolutely. And for our listeners, here's an actionable insight of think like you could do right now. Get out a piece of paper for all three circles A, B, C. The C circle is everything that fascinates and motivates you, that you love doing. Like it is your, zone of genius, if you will. It's like you what's really great at both at work and as a parent.

00;21;26;04 - 00;21;45;02
Mike Malloy
Or there are things as parent you love doing. Section B in the B circle is stuff you don't mind doing. You're not great at it. You don't love it, but it's like not terrible. And this might be like sending out invoices. Like I love doing it, but like, people I, me like, all right, that's fine. And like, I would put cooking in that bucket for me.

00;21;45;02 - 00;22;03;00
Mike Malloy
Like, I'm not great at it, but I mind doing I have to do it. So like, don't do it. Circle A is what is the irritating, annoying, frustrating, hard, lame stuff that you suck at. You hate doing things. You know, energy is very much draining. Like, look at the list. That's the stuff you should delegate, automate, cut, systematize.

00;22;03;00 - 00;22;23;11
Mike Malloy
Like take off of your plate. Not only like once you have these three lists, then think about like an average week and estimate what percentage of your time do you spend on activities and circle a circle. Be your circle. See, without fail, people are spending 50, 60, 70% of their time doing stuff in circle A and like 5 or 10% of their time doing stuff in circle B.

00;22;23;13 - 00;22;48;28
Mike Malloy
Yeah. How do you switch those? How do you get rid of this stuff? That's your responsibility. If you think about like a RACI matrix for responsible, accountable, consulted, informed, like you don't have to be responsible and accountable for some of stuff that you hate doing, like shuffle around to being consulted. So like people ask questions and then ultimately just inform and, you know, okay, you know, these things have been taken care of.

00;22;49;00 - 00;23;04;10
Mike Malloy
And this works in business in terms of the different functions and activities and at home. Part of this, maybe a conversation with your spouse, part of it might be like hiring a cleaner who comes in once a month to like, clean the toilets, because I bet you neither you and your wife have that in your C circle.

00;23;04;12 - 00;23;04;25
Paul Sullivan
How did you.

00;23;04;25 - 00;23;09;16
Mike Malloy
Guess? Yeah, but that I love it. That's a really helpful exercise.

00;23;09;19 - 00;23;32;17
Paul Sullivan
ABC, because I love it. Okay. Question for, ahead of time, your people who are giving you back time in your life sent over a bunch of things about MC. This end of a dad jokes. It sent over a poem they sent out, shout out to a stoic philosopher. You know, what is this all about, Mike?

00;23;32;17 - 00;23;42;08
Paul Sullivan
I mean, should we be joking about parenthood? Should we be waxing poetic about it? Or should we just suck it up? Like, like a stoic would.

00;23;42;10 - 00;23;54;11
Mike Malloy
Think we should celebrate the whole range of human emotion, as it comes to parenting, because part of it is great. And, yes, honey.

00;23;54;13 - 00;23;59;08
Mike Malloy
Why?

00;23;59;10 - 00;24;01;08
Mike Malloy
No, my wallet is.

00;24;01;11 - 00;24;06;06
Paul Sullivan
Is this for real? Is this a for real part of this podcast right here?

00;24;06;08 - 00;24;10;22
Mike Malloy
Yeah. This.

00;24;10;24 - 00;24;14;04
Paul Sullivan
That wasn't a dad joke. That wasn't a poem. That wasn't a.

00;24;14;05 - 00;24;22;29
Mike Malloy
So that was my wife coming in at work and asking an important question about how to pay bill, what the bill was on the back of my debit card. And so, you know, like, I.

00;24;22;29 - 00;24;34;15
Paul Sullivan
Don't know how this I don't know how this works here. I that's definitely in your C circle right there. Can you have Malloy Industries reach out to your wife and, instead of talk to her about time boxing?

00;24;34;15 - 00;24;51;08
Mike Malloy
Is this this is, Well, it's funny you say that because, we have a firm rule in our family that no matter what I'm doing in here, she's always more important. And so is Max. And so, as much as I love, you know, this podcast, like, if she need my help, I'm here. And, like, that is a benefit of this life that we built.

00;24;51;10 - 00;24;54;07
Mike Malloy
I'm sure she's doing something important that we did to, you know.

00;24;54;10 - 00;24;56;12
Paul Sullivan
To pay that bill right now. Like what?

00;24;56;17 - 00;24;57;21
Mike Malloy
Yeah, definitely. Man.

00;24;57;21 - 00;25;02;15
Paul Sullivan
Maybe do wait till, like, the 11th hour to pay your bills. Do you like, way to hit the button?

00;25;02;20 - 00;25;18;19
Mike Malloy
I mean, I bet she was buying, you know, a new cars. Three bucks for max. I'm like, yeah, he needs that book, man. We've only have seven of them in our house right now. I believe the question was, we referenced a poem waxing poetically the stuff that's like, I think you got to celebrate the whole range of human emotions.

00;25;18;22 - 00;25;30;09
Mike Malloy
Being a dad. There's the good, the bad, the ugly. I'm going to make a plug for Ryan Holiday. And the Daily Dad is like a phenomenal book. He has a daily newsletter not only read email newsletters or emails that I read.

00;25;30;09 - 00;25;31;02
Paul Sullivan
It, I read it.

00;25;31;02 - 00;25;53;00
Mike Malloy
But this physical book, has helped me so much with my shutdown protocol. At the end of my workday, typically between 5 and 530 max, a wake up nap, and I usually know when he goes and gets an after the map. I struggled for a while, shutting work brain and just being in dad mode at night and having this.

00;25;53;00 - 00;26;09;08
Mike Malloy
And it's a page that it takes about a minute, literally from the walk to my office up the stairs. Usually Paul the toddler stared for the bedroom door. I'll read the page for the day, and that has been a mental signal to be like, hey, work's done. Think a little bit about this. Dad thought you just got and like, go, go enjoy time, get your son.

00;26;09;10 - 00;26;32;01
Mike Malloy
And so that is something very helpful. Another thing we got, is I ordered on Etsy. It's a it's a box to put your phone in 30 bucks. It just says family time. Phones go in here. And the concept of, like, taking my phone out of my pocket so I can't physically touch it. Yeah. And I take my headphone, my chapstick, my eye drops out of, like, empty pockets.

00;26;32;01 - 00;26;49;24
Mike Malloy
Playtime. There's nothing in my pocket. I'm not distracted thinking about emails. Or I should look at ESPN for whatever, you know, I'm just focused on, like, being present, and there's a ton of research of, like, you being able to feel your phone is distracting. Be able to see your phone on a table during any meal is distracting, even if it's not your phone.

00;26;49;26 - 00;27;02;27
Mike Malloy
It just, like, opens up this portal in your brain to think about all the things you could do with it. So I got it. I was like, did you get this means like, no, honey, I got this for me because I want to be able to, like, you can do whatever you want because I'm not going to tell you what to do.

00;27;02;27 - 00;27;09;20
Mike Malloy
I'm just going to model the behavior. And if you decide you want use a box, great. If not for you to, there's no way it does work. It also don't like being told to do.

00;27;09;20 - 00;27;10;07
Paul Sullivan
No, no.

00;27;10;09 - 00;27;12;10
Mike Malloy
No, I don't have any blockers. Have learned that they.

00;27;12;10 - 00;27;15;09
Paul Sullivan
Watch you do they don't listen to what I say. They watch it.

00;27;15;09 - 00;27;32;07
Mike Malloy
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's funny you say that because I'm gonna use that as a way to, to share a poem that I, I listened to every evening. So as a careful man, I want to be a little fellow follows me. I do not dare go astray for fear he'll go the selfsame way. And I once escape his eyes.

00;27;32;13 - 00;27;38;19
Mike Malloy
Whatever he sees me do, he tries like me. He says he's going to be. That little chap follows me.

00;27;38;22 - 00;27;41;11
Paul Sullivan
And he who wrote that poem.

00;27;41;14 - 00;27;57;25
Mike Malloy
A smart person wrote that poem. John Wooden used to give it to a lot of people, and I heard about it from a John Wooden lesson of, like when he met at somebody as a new dad, he wouldn't, you know, give me a little printout of that poem. And so I have it, like right there on my wall, my desk, and it just, like, reminds me your point of, like, they do what they say you do.

00;27;57;25 - 00;28;07;19
Mike Malloy
They don't care as much what you say. It's like, what are your actions? And, you know, I read a lot of books, so my son sees me reading books. So he likes to read books, too, you know.

00;28;07;21 - 00;28;38;03
Paul Sullivan
That. That's all right. Question five. Hobbies are hard. For working parents. You said you gave up coaching the ultimate frisbee team. When you're married, a kid had a son. Self-care is also hard for, parents. And sometimes, you know, work just gets to be a lot. But you've done something really, interesting. May have another friend who's done something similar is that you've created, really designated time that you completely park, you know, box off for your son every week.

00;28;38;03 - 00;28;52;16
Paul Sullivan
It's a Wednesday. Tell us about how this obviously you not seeing your son one day, we. But I tell us how this strategy came about for you to sort of clear everything off your calendar for that Wednesday so you can just dedicate it to your son.

00;28;52;18 - 00;29;18;10
Mike Malloy
Yeah. It it took some deliberate reflection and, like, thinking about how I had spent my time in the past year. And so, like, over the winter break, I did a review of 2024. And I looked at each week and it's a pretty color coded calendar by day kind of guy. And so I made notes about who did I enjoy meeting with, who energized me, and who did I not enjoy meeting with or drained me?

00;29;18;10 - 00;29;38;29
Mike Malloy
And what recurring meetings could I cut or decrease the frequency or turn into an email or a loom video instead? And when I went back and through this and this was December, I had been kind of working full time. My wife had, retired, if you will, to, to being with Max for about seven months. And I have kind of forgotten that.

00;29;38;29 - 00;29;53;14
Mike Malloy
So the first half of the year and the, you know, year and a half before that, I was his primary caregiver. I had tended to blocked off. And I, every day. And like, I had a library on Tuesday, Wednesday and like other things that we would do. And I was like, man, I miss going to the library.

00;29;53;14 - 00;30;12;11
Mike Malloy
Like, I love it like that. That's our community, at this stage of, you know, early parenthood and, for veterans with like, even infants, like, look at your local library, like, they probably have storytime at least once a week just to go and see other people who have kids your age and realize like, oh, they have the bags under the eyes to, like, all right, cool.

00;30;12;14 - 00;30;37;26
Mike Malloy
And I hadn't been in a long time because my wife was doing it, and I realized, like, I really wanted that back. And so I rejiggered my schedule for, this year, I moved our staff meetings to Thursday. I, you know, basically carved out from nine to noon or whenever she wakes up like, this is Max and dad time where you want adventure and you'll go to the library or the beach as it gets warmer.

00;30;37;29 - 00;31;04;10
Mike Malloy
Maybe we'll just, like, stay home and play. But it's designed to, like, not have meetings. Like, I didn't get on my computer yesterday until like, 11, 35. Like, I got back from library, my wife was home, and I was like, you know, got on. But to have that space where like, yeah, let's just let's be present with one another, let's have breakfast together, talk about what we put on our English weekends and not be multitasking, trying to stuff on my phone or whatever.

00;31;04;12 - 00;31;25;17
Mike Malloy
It means a lot. You know, and the other thing that I'll throw out there because you mentioned hobbies is during Covid, and since Max was born, I picked up the hobby of needlepoint. Paul. And so this is a beautiful eyeglass case, which is also now my needlepoint kit. And like, I'm kind of perpetually just like a little something to do for fun.

00;31;25;19 - 00;31;41;10
Mike Malloy
That, again, doesn't involve technology because, I think if your kid just sees you on your phone all the time and I'm guilty of something to like, you might be in the bathroom. Yeah. He is very good swimmer at this point, but, like, I might have my phone out and he picks up a story. I was like, hey, dad, I'm calling you.

00;31;41;10 - 00;31;47;20
Mike Malloy
Can you hear me now? And like, He's just seeing me, like on my phone. He wants attention. Like, that's a good feedback loop. You know.

00;31;47;23 - 00;31;53;28
Paul Sullivan
You have it now. He's going to be playing with needles in the bathtub because he's emulating you. Need a point. That sounds more dangerous.

00;31;54;01 - 00;32;15;05
Mike Malloy
It's not. We do it in a supervised setting. We try to do it not. Not in the bathtub. You don't get, you know, electrocute or anything because there's electric needles. Oh. But yeah, but it's actually funny because, not funny, but a few months ago, I had to reprimand him. Because, I came down and saw Max was playing in the electrical outlet.

00;32;15;08 - 00;32;19;22
Mike Malloy
And what happened was I actually had to ground him.

00;32;19;24 - 00;32;22;21
Mike Malloy
But it's okay. He's he's been conducting himself better since the.

00;32;22;21 - 00;32;46;29
Paul Sullivan
Oh, my God, Mike Malloy all around. Interesting guy, connoisseur of dad jokes. Thank you for being my guest today on the Company of Dads podcast. I will give you the final word, or, I guess I should say, probably the final joke to take us out to that.

00;32;47;02 - 00;32;51;05
Mike Malloy
Where do rainbows go when they get in trouble?

00;32;51;07 - 00;32;53;17
Paul Sullivan
I don't know where rainbows go when they get in trouble.

00;32;53;18 - 00;32;57;09
Mike Malloy
Like prism.

00;32;57;12 - 00;33;03;11
Mike Malloy
But it's only a light sentence. Because they need time to reflect.

00;33;03;14 - 00;33;13;11
Paul Sullivan
That three step or a three step or punch line to take us out. Mike Malloy, thank you so much again for being on the company. It does podcast. That was fun.

00;33;13;13 - 00;33;17;18
Mike Malloy
My pleasure. If this was last, thank you.

00;33;17;21 - 00;33;35;15
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Company Dads podcast. Really appreciate you tuning in week after week to really use this moment here to thank the people who make it possible. Number one of course held are mirror, who is our podcast editor. We also have Skip Terry home to many of you know friend lead diaries.

00;33;35;15 - 00;33;58;19
Paul Sullivan
He's taken over our social media. Terry Brennan is helping us with our audience development. And Emily Servant is there. Each and every day helping with the web development and can't do any of this without, an amazing board, of advisors. So I just want to say thank you to all of you who help. And I want to say thank you to everyone who listened.

00;33;58;19 - 00;34;02;04
Paul Sullivan
And, hopefully you'll tune in again next week. Thank you so much.