Bootstrapped Web

Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Another episode of Bootstrap Web. Brian and I have the pleasure of having both Rob and Sherry Walling on today with us. And we're gonna talk about the family element in entrepreneurship, how it plays into our daily lives, how it plays into the big picture.

We're just gonna see where the conversation goes. Guys, thank you very much for coming on.

Our pleasure.

To be here.

Yeah. Yeah. Welcome welcome, Wallings. Good to have you guys on, Rob and and Sherry. Yeah.

Really excited to to talk about this today. As I said before the show, we don't have basically anything planned. That's kinda how we go every week. So but, you know, you guys obviously co host the Zen Founder podcast, which is which is really enjoyable. Kinda talking about entrepreneurship, but also family life and and other things that's been really cool to to tune into.

And but yeah. I don't I don't know. I mean, where should we kinda begin today's

Yeah. I I

can start things off. Have a funny not story, but so today, I'm taking my kids to to the Polar Express train. You know that that book, the Polar Express?

Mhmm.

I'm saying it right as a good Jew here. I'm trying to remember all my Christmas stuff. So I'm taking them to like, they, like, recreate the whole experience here at Mount Hood, like, which is a big volcano with, you know, like a mountain with snow where people ski. So, so I'm doing that today, taking the whole family there. So I I love the holidays.

I like the forced time away from work. It's not optional. And it's like, alright, cool. I'm just gonna unplug. I'm definitely competing.

You know what? I was thinking about it the other day. I feel like Christmas is like your VC funded competitor. It just It just has too many features, man. You cannot compete with it.

It's got the jolly fat man with the presents, it's got lights, it's got songs, it's got everything. I'm like, all right Hanukkah, do your thing baby. Do your thing. Two thousand years of misery.

I kinda feel like

I I I grew up, you know, that my my family grew up with Jewish, and I don't even know when Hanukkah is now. Like, I'm just totally out of the loop on on on Judaism, basically.

Well, this

year it's on it's on Christmas Eve, the first night. So it's just

Oh, is it? Okay. It's got it's got

no chance.

It's got no chance.

You know, I I agree with you though that I I really like these holidays in terms of like working on on business stuff because it's like Thanksgiving, you know, the long weekend. Every at least here in The US, everybody has that long weekend. So everyone has the same excuse for, you know, taking a couple days off. I mean, for me, I actually like those days to try to get a little bit of work done. Although this year we were traveling to family, yeah.

I was gonna ask, do you end up looking at it as an opportunity for quiet work?

A lot of holidays throughout the year, I do. Thanksgiving and Christmas, obviously, we're usually hanging out with family, but you know, other days where where most people are taken off, like Veterans Day or Martin Luther King Day or whatever, like, that's a day to kinda actually get some work done.

How does that work when your kids are home? Or are they I guess your kids aren't old enough to be in school yet. Right?

Yeah. My kids are still very young before school. My two and a half year old is going to daycare three days a week, but the seventh month old is still

basically yet.

Yeah. Basically running the house over here. So Yeah.

I I think we have three different phases. Brian, yours are still at home. Right? Mine go to, the half day. And so my day is punctuated by my wife texting me and saying, please come out to the car and help me bring the stuff home.

Because I've got one kid sleeping, another kid in the car seat, groceries. So just be able to so that my natural breaks of the day are when she comes home from that. And then you guys, Rob and Sherry, have your your kids at school all day.

Yes. It's amazing.

Oh god. I can't wait.

This big this big yellow

My wife bus can't wait.

Comes up, and we, like, usher them onto it, and it pulls right up to our corner. And they get on, and then Sherry and I look around after that. We're like, why is the house so quiet? Like, someone else is watching our kids for seven hours. It's like and we don't have to pay?

Like, it is amazing. Yeah. We love our kids.

And and the education thing. The education.

Yeah. Yeah. That's Yeah. You know what? I don't

that's sort of superfluous. I feel like we we like homeschool, but we just send our kids to school so we can get our work done.

Like, you feel like

there's at home.

I I I'm like preparing myself for that. Do you feel like there is a bigger responsibility than let's say twenty years ago when we went to school to have a homeschool component? I don't trust the education system to do what it needs to do. I like I I feel like I I am going to, like, try to teach my kids history because they're gonna have no chance of

learning history. About that too. We're still a few years away from it, but I I I worry about, like, the the world has changed so much in the last, like, twenty years. And I'm sure you guys probably know much better than we do. But what they're learning in school or what they're teaching in school and and compare that to reality of what's out there today, like, I just I I don't even know where to start with

I think it depends on where you know, there there's was it greatschools.org? Sherry refers to that all the time, but it basically rates schools in The US on a one to 10 rating system. And when we've had our we've had our kids in varying levels of that, you know, of that. We've had them in three different three or four different schools. And the ones on the lower end, we really felt like, they were not getting challenged.

And then, where we live here, the schools are actually really good in Minneapolis, depending on what area of town you live in. And I do feel like they're they're learning quite a bit, but we augment that. Like, I'm I'm teaching working with our oldest to learn how to code, right? Because they're not teaching. They're teaching them a little bit of that, but I wanna really get into it.

And then we're trying to teach them like money management because they're not gonna learn that in school. We're trying to teach them art, but they learned some of that in school, but Sherry does a lot of art with them. So don't know. I think it depends on, am I like doing times tables with them and fractions? No, not really.

I'm not doing just hardcore math because they seem to get enough of that in school. But I think there's these things around the edges that we've found where it's like, I want my, I want my kids to know more, you know, more about these, these peripheral subjects.

I think too, like thinking about the relationship between entrepreneurship and children, you know, one of the things that is part of the entrepreneurial life is this kind of way of, of going off the grid a little bit, or of being a little bit of a critic or somebody who is, sort of charting their own course. And I think when it comes to education and kids, a lot of what we are doing at home, think is, is really wanting to help our kids learn to be critical thinkers and sort of challenge some of the things that they're taught in school or sort of evaluate why it's helpful or not helpful to look at, you know, a certain topic from that perspective. And it's a little bit tricky because critical thinking is not always, like well regarded in elementary school. I think, you know, you're supposed to sort of sit down and behave and not challenge too many things.

And kinda memorize the textbook and do do good on the test and that's, that's the plan. But like, you know, one thing that I think about a lot as as I look ahead to those, the school years is I just want them to really learn how to be problem solvers or really get that experience of solving a problem or taking something apart and putting it back together and figuring out why you'd want to apply piece of knowledge, you know. I don't I don't know that that school always really did that for me. I I always found that, like, I was kind of an average student in school mostly because I was either not challenged or just not interested. I didn't see the point of working on something unless it was as a means to an end.

And and I I don't know. I I wanna somehow get that across in my kids. But, you know, we moved here to to Orange, Connecticut this year, like, specifically because it's a highly rated education system in this town. And my wife and I talk about this all the time, like we don't even really know what that means. Like we're not we didn't go take any tours of schools or anything like that.

And like, the Internet just told us that this is a good school town, so we moved here. And it's and we're not really planning or, you know, interested in in homeschooling, although we do want to, you know, supplement with after school programs and and our own stuff.

So I'm

I'm scared of the whole thing. The whole thing's that scary. We we have like a it sounds like a self preservation mechanism, but we we we have three daughters, and I think that colors the perspective slightly, especially coming from a house with all boys. But we see our daughter's rebelliousness, as a positive or at least we try to tell that to ourselves because, I don't want them to just fall in line and just plea please the teacher type of situation. So I see, like, my middle one does not give a crap what I say.

She just very selectively ignores what you say, and part of me is kind of excited to see where that goes. Yep.

Yeah. We talk about this a lot, how how great traits in adults are not necessarily very good traits in children, or at least they're not very adaptive to, to school situations. And I think that ability to sort of challenge the status quo and to push back and be a little bit rebellious and sort of say like, Hey, I really don't care what you think about me. I mean, that is going be amazing when she's 25. I'm not sure how that's going go for you, Jordan, but having that kind of personality and then, you know, trying to be in a school system that's really quite oriented towards, you know, normative behavior and compliance.

That's a, it's a tough setup. It's like we, on one hand, we model this kind of entrepreneurial life where you're responsible for yourself and you're responsible to create the kind of life that you want. But then on the other hand, you know, we send our kids to school where that kind of ingenuity and creative problem solving is not necessarily always honored in the same way.

How do you guys think about, like, how your children see what you do for a living? And, you know, your your kids are older, so I'm sure they have a better understanding of, you know, the idea of running a business and being your own boss and that sort of thing versus probably what the majority of their classmates parents do, which is I'm I'm guessing most of the time is is like go go to a job, go work at an office.

Yeah. I've really tried to teach our old as to who has a firmer grasp of of what I do, really that, like, this that entrepreneurship is kind of the key to why I'm around so much and why I was able to work from home. And, like, I just I try to point out the benefits. I've told them that it's stressful, but I've also told them, like, this is this is probably what you're gonna do too. You don't have to if you don't don't want to.

But I think knowing you, this is this is your path.

You know? Yeah. Talked about the emotional exhaustion quite yet.

No. The burnout. The insanity. The heavy drinking.

That's where I come in.

With our with our younger

What's the number one? This is whiskey.

Exactly. He did offer to pour someone some bourbon the other day. I'm like, you can't say that.

That's

yeah. With our younger, you know, he's he's six and he still just thinks I work on computers and check email all the time, and and that's fine for now. But we are trying to we're definitely trying to instill some type of entrepreneurial at least a thought process. Like, even if you're not you know, you look ten, twenty years down the line, even if you're not going to be a founder of a startup, if you're let's say you're an artist or you're a journalist or you're, you know, even like a doctor or I don't know, something like having some type of a, technological training and b, entrepreneurial nature, it will only benefit you, I think, in in any of those. Right?

Because it teaches you how to how to create, how to strive for the next thing, how to market yourself, how to, you know, even when I was getting salary jobs, like being an entrepreneur was helpful because I I was negotiating my salary, which most people didn't. And I see that as kind of being a mark of someone who's going out and and, you know, taking kinda what they want.

And I think that for our kids' generation, it's gonna be so much more common. And I I I think and I hope a a lot more accepted in the mainstream to do something entrepreneurial or at least freelance or and I think there are gonna be more smaller teams, smaller companies. You know? It already is. It already is now.

But I think it's Northeast.

For for people our age and, you know, in their twenties and thirties today, it's still going a little bit against the grain in terms of what our parents did or or or saw.

Whereas It was a starker contrast then. Then it was rare, especially in Northeast also where where of overwhelming majority of people have, have a larger employer. Here here in Portland, I'd say it's it's like a third of the people that we hang out with and talk to are even if they're a lawyer, they have their own practice. Or they're a writer and they work for themselves even if they write for other bigger publications or it's just it's just more and more common. Yeah.

And the other idea of of remote working is so is gonna be come more and more widespread. I mean, here, my so my two year two and a half year old is obviously, she doesn't understand the concept of running a business, but she gets that my work is at home. And and that's kind of her first understanding of of work in a way because, know, my my wife is kind of home with them and she doesn't go to a job anymore and just actually last night she was running around. So I'm here in home office and she was running around like running through my office and she was like I'm running to daddy's work. Like, she she calls this room, like, daddy's work.

And, you know, so Yeah.

I

just have no idea of the difference. Like, they don't have really a concept of parents who work nine to five and can't, you know, get to their school performances or can't make time to, like, get away from work to volunteer in the classroom or something like that. Like, they're totally immersed in this kind of culture. And most of the people that we spend time with are, you know, are entrepreneurs or business owners in some capacity.

So so that's an interesting thing. When you grow up that way, it's a default. Right? I I grew up in, an immigrant entrepreneur household where my I knew the finances of the household since I was, like, 12 because he my dad just wanted me to have an an understanding of it and a feeling for it. But that also means it's really hard to accept the alternative.

I may have been better equipped or happier to work for someone, but it was not even a possibility when if you see that and you know entrepreneurship as the default and being able to be with family and having more control over your time. So I think it's better overall, but it definitely colors your kids' perspective on what's acceptable to them. So it it might limit their options even if that's overall a a good thing. Yeah.

I think from like, my my father has run his his own law practice for many years. And I think for me that didn't necessarily he does run his own business in that sense, but I I growing up, I didn't really see it that way. I I I think what I really caught on to when I was really young was just the fact that he's his own boss. And and that kind of stuck with me as didn't necessarily drive me in the direction of, okay, definitely become an entrepreneur. But it definitely opened my eyes to the fact that that's a possibility that you could be your own boss.

And And both my grandfathers were business owners as well. So I think it gets into the gene pool there of at some point or another after having a few bosses, you're gonna get the itch to go out on your own. I noticed it with my brother as well. He he's running his own thing too. It's interesting.

It's it's it seems contagious. It's an affliction of sorts. So we we talked about kids a lot a lot. The other big factor is marriage. That's the other piece that is heavily impacted by entrepreneurship for better and for worse.

I have found with kids and being very busy, the the marriaging requires a conscious effort. It's not just because you you can go a day or two and really not have that that much conversation other than can you grab me a tissue? Can I need a wipe and could you hold this for a second? And, you know, you're interacting, and then you're so tired at the end of the day. You sit down to watch TV, and you're on your phones watching TV, and you look over and you're like, hey, what's going on?

Everything cool? Alright. Good. I'll go back to my point. You go back to yours.

So you you

kinda There's a of routine, especially when when kids are involved for sure. Yeah.

It's easy for that relationship to be really utilitarian. Right? To just just sort of partner in the management of your household and handling your kids and that that's sort of all that there's energy for.

Right. It's almost like, I'll see you in a few years. We just get past this insane period, we'll kinda which is not okay. And and Sherry, you you've talked to a bunch of people on Zen founder. Like, what what are those common things that you find people talk about or complain about or worry about when it comes to entrepreneurship and and and marriage?

Yeah. I mean, I think you you kinda nail it with this image of sitting on the couch at the end of the day, both looking at your phones and not connecting. And there's a there's just this fatigue about not feeling like you have energy to pour into the other person or, you know, to kind of be present and have more conversation. And, and I think that that's, you know, that's really a loss. I think most of us enter relationships because, the other person is genuinely enjoyable to us.

And I think having a conceptualization or a way of thinking about your relationship as kind of like this break from the reality of all of the work day in and day out. I mean, I think there are times when it's like, don't wanna talk about the kids. I don't wanna talk about work. I just wanna like feel like a grown up human with another grown up human. And I think we do have to make time for that.

And I think that's super hard in an entrepreneurial life.

Yeah. And sometimes you confide in them about business because you who else can you confide in? So it it it's it gets a little it gets blurred. It's it's very I'll I envy sometimes the ability of some of my friends, they just leave work behind. Yeah.

They just leave. They get on the train. They read the newspaper or magazine or a book or something, and they're like, when they get home, they're done. They don't they don't wanna talk about work. That's tomorrow.

And and it almost allows them a richer life in many ways because they can be into other what seems like superfluous things. Like, I don't care about sports. I don't have, like, I don't have bandwidth for it. But a a lot of people do, so they they give up the freedom on one end, but it does open up a different type of freedom of, like, not caring or not being as as stressed.

They get to check out.

Again, I'm kinda newer at this than than you guys are in terms of having kids. You know, we're about two two, three years into this, but I do agree with you, Jordan. There's just a lot of routine and there's not a whole lot of time to to really just hang out with with my wife. But I think the the few areas where we get those those bits of time to just talk about or talk just between us are, you know, we got a few nights out where my parents will come and watch the kids or we give the kids to my parents. We we get to go out then, or just little like twenty minutes here and there, like in the car, the kids are in the back seat, they're doing their thing, and and we're in the front seat.

That that's one place. This is kinda sad just talking about this, but No.

It's it's

very real.

Very real.

Yeah. You know, bedroom late at night, but we're usually so tired that it's just like, you know, wiped out at the end of the day and and, you know, meals here and there, but it's but for the most part, it's it's you're hanging with the kids.

I I think it get I mean, from, you know, having a six and 10 year old, like, we have more time to ourselves now. Not only because they're at school and I work from home a few days a week and and Sherry's at home. But, you know, really, the boys, sometime in the eve sometimes in the evening, if we say, alright. Go go play the Plagos, they'll go up for ninety minutes, two hours, and they're they're gone. They're just up in this room.

Right? And that that you guys aren't there yet. But it's a it's a glorious thing. And then, frankly, we're like, alright. Go get ready for bed.

And around eight 08:30, they're gone. And so Sherry and I you know, Sherry did art last night. We watched Westworld together. We had some conversations about stuff. So there is it it does get easier, but there are many year yeah.

There are many years in the early days when it wasn't. Right? And we're trying to get a kid to rock a kid to sleep until 10:11 at night, and then it's just Yeah. Those those are the tough

Those last few hours at night watching watching TV and and movies is just golden. You know.

Yeah. We just throw our kids in bed at like 06:30. Like, when you're done, your day's over. Yeah.

I'll like you more tomorrow.

That that is like, every now and then we do try to get them down and and then we'll do like a late dinner. That's that's nice too. But, know, talking about about business with my wife, I think in in recent years, and we do I do talk a lot with her, but she is very separated from this whole world of working online in this industry and she you know, she's she's an occupational therapist by training and she works with kids in in the schools or or she did for a while and that's completely different from what we do. So even like a lot of the things that I talk about, she doesn't totally she understands that things that I taught taught her about, but, you know, she's not connected to this world. So I I definitely find a lot more value in having mastermind groups and and friends and and advisers to to talk about real issues and decisions that I'm going through.

I I it's good to get a perspective from from my wife and to and to bounce ideas off her because I've I have she has been able to to kinda point out to me when I'm saying something or making a decision that just really doesn't make sense for what she knows about about me or what I wanna do. But the details and the tactical stuff, I think she prefers when I just take that stuff to the mastermind group instead of her. Probably just bores the shit out of her.

I think that's like a a marriage saving strategy, honestly. I mean, she didn't marry you so she could be your business partner. Like, that that's not probably why she is with you. And I think that having those places for you to really talk through the details with people who are a kind of qualified to like really advise you well, and, you know, don't have as much emotional investment in the choices that you're making. Like they care about you.

They want you to do well, but they're not stressed about whether this means you're gonna be, you know, busy or, or away from home or they just don't have such an emotional investment in it. And I think that's really helpful. I I feel like, you know, Rob has, like, a a work a work spouse in in Ruben and in his in his mastermind group, and those are the people that he talks about with. And it then I'm off the hook. I don't have to do all of that with him as well.

You you probably hear about the personnel issues. Right? How do I deal with this person? This is happening internally. How what would you think?

What's gonna motivate them the right way? That that's what I end up talking to to my wife about because it it requires no techno no technical context. No. It's not business. It's people.

And I hear about how he feels.

Like That's a big one.

Like his sort of inner life, his stress, his worry, his concern, but but not the nuts and bolts of it. It's the emotional support. It's the, you know, caring about how things are going, but not necessarily advising about techniques that might make it better.

Yeah. That's yeah. I don't tend to ask about tactical things like, hey. Should we do this marketing approach? Boy, we I might say, hey.

We did this and it really worked. Or, We did this and it really didn't. But it's kind of a little update thing. But I do ask about things like, does this you know, we're thinking about doing this. Does that fit who I am?

Like, I'll try to get a sanity check. Like, you know me better than anybody. Does this broader, like, high level thing, you know, maybe like a drip acquisition, right? Like early, early on, like, you think I'm ready? You know, do you think this is the right move for me personally, for the family, for the, you know, that kind of stuff?

But it is definitely higher level thinking, I think.

Yeah. I I find that she can, my wife can pull out things that I said months ago. And, you know, just like, wait, you're doing that now, but what about that thing that you that you were doing just earlier this year? Like what happened to that? And and she'll she'll kinda remind me of maybe certain priorities that I that I had set in in the business that changed.

But, yeah. But yeah, you're right. Like the emotional stuff and and like the yeah. I mean, that that's just really good to get that get that feedback. I'm trying to think of, a specific example of of where that comes into play.

I I mean, one thing for me would be like kind of celebrating wins, you know, whether it's signing a couple new clients this week or things that, like, I wouldn't necessarily go to friends or the mastermind group to or or, know, like, people on the team to to, like, celebrate, but it's it's good to have that that little celebration of, yeah, we, you know, we had a really big win this or last month, you know, the bottom line was awesome last month compared to the previous month or something like that. Yeah. It's good to have that a bit. And and obviously, the opposite, the struggles and and that you don't really wanna talk about with with too many people either.

It's like, so how come there's a a cloud over your face and and you look like you're dying? What's what's going on? So let me describe an experience I I had over the past, like, decade and see if you guys had something similar or something of the same flavor. I I came across this statistic when I was younger at some point that just stuck with me. It was this it was basically talking about what happens to people's earning level when they have kids.

And it was some overwhelming statistic of something like 90% of the people, whatever income bracket you are in when you have a child, you stay in that bracket. I remember that scaring the hell out of me and I used to think to myself, I got to get this done before I have kids because that's just going to make every, it increases the level of difficulty. I didn't get where I wanted to go before I had kids, then at some point you're like, Okay, it's stupid to wait to have kids. You don't wait to have kids. You just have kids.

There's no perfect time to have it. Then in many ways it got harder rise above the current income level. And at the same time, also flowered this crazy new really strong motivation of like, woah, didn't, that you didn't have before. You were like, it was an abstract thought I wanna be successful. These people I look up to or how I wanna feel about myself or and and then all of a sudden it became much more tangible like, oh, there there isn't like an option.

If I do it this way, our lives are gonna look a certain way. If I do it a different way, lives look very different. Did you guys have that? Like before you had kids, felt one way in terms of motivation and then as you had kids that obviously changes the motivation, but how?

I mean, I think for me, we had our first son when I was, finishing up graduate school. So it's sort of like a tough time to have a child, but, it was like completely a, like, productivity hack. Like, I just did not waste time and every minute counted and I was pretty like focused. And, you know, I think that it's actually probably helped me get more done to just have these demands on my time where I value my time so much. And I value that downtime with my kids.

I value, the quiet work time that I do have is like golden. So, you know, I'm, like, super, super focused, I think, as a as a working parent.

My motivation before we had kids was was pretty strong because it was to get out of salaried employment. I it really did not agree with me. Maybe I could have found a a job that fit, but just I just bounced from job to job. I mean, I I was no I was at no company for longer than two and a half years because and I really did not have fun the last year at that at that two and a half year. I just felt it was exhausting.

And so I just struggled to fit into corporate culture at all and nothing was a fit. So I had a very, very strong desire of get to $8 a month or nine grand a month or whatever, you know, whatever the number was to quit my job. I was highly motivated. And then to be honest, having the kids kind of that had me back off a little bit. I wasn't like, quote unquote, successful.

I was I was making just what I would have been as a salary developer, but at least I had a bunch of time to spend with them. You know? And then, eventually, had I had renewed interest and and motivation. So I don't know. Yeah.

I think my path maybe was a little different.

Yeah. I think I've always had a a natural motivation. There's never I I don't think there was ever really a time where I felt, like, lazy or complacent. And but I think that before kids, was not as focused. And I I think the difference is it's part of experience just being making smarter decisions on what to focus on and when to stick with something and when to cut and go to something else.

When I was younger before kids, was just throwing so many different projects and ideas at the wall to see what stuck and and kind of playing around with ideas and starting something and and actually having a little bit of success with it, then not sticking with it and doing something else and just kind of, you know, being in retrospect, kind of making stupid unfocused decisions. Whereas once we got pregnant and had kids, it became much more about, alright, what is the one, two, three year plan for this thing that I'm working on and and where is that gonna position me for the next thing that I'm that I'm working on? Not that I had all those answers, but I was definitely thinking more in in like, alright, we've gotta make a smarter path here. But to also to to what Cherry said, I mean, you know, the practicality of of it all, I mean, yeah, time is golden. Before it was like, yeah, could spend a couple hours here, a couple minutes there, but now it's like, oh, we've got a free half an hour while the while the baby's napping.

Like, I could actually like work on that thing. And before it might have been like, yeah, keep Twitter open all day and and play around and read articles and whatnot. Now it's just like, no. Distractions out and just get shit done because this is the only time I'm gonna have to do it. I guess the other thing that I'll just say is, you know, I I always value my time with wife and we like to travel and stuff, but beyond that, before we had kids, there wasn't a driving I used to be much more into music and different hobbies and things, But like there wasn't something to really pull my attention and my priority away from the business, whether it was working on projects or doing freelance work.

But now, that time with the family and hanging out with the kids and keeping those hours free at night to watch movies and TV with my wife and the weekends to really go out with the family and do stuff, like that's even more of a priority than working on the business as as much as and as hard as I do work. So I think that's also different is is to have that kind of like what Rob you were saying about having that drive to to form to to build my business so that I have that free time.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I've gone through ebbs and flows over the, you know, the past eleven years of certain times when I I'm like you have no, you know, at times just no hobbies and it's like work and family, work and family. And then I burned out a couple times, probably three times over that time period. And burn, oh, man, burnout is tough because you, I don't even wanna respond to email.

I'll just sit for hours in front of a computer because I should be working, and I feel like I have a ton to do, but I can't you have no motivation to do it. And at that at those times, I've had to force myself to, like, do something else, like pick up a hobby just for the time being. I stop listening to podcasts about business. I stop listening to audiobooks about business, and I switch to either fiction or just some random, you know, nonfiction rise of, you know, of of homo sapiens or just some, you know, something that's still educational and smart, but I really have to clear out my cue because my mind can't take it anymore. And those are the times when I'm not very pleasant to be around as Sherry can attest to.

And then I swing back, you know, and get the motivation back and start working again.

One thing that I know that my wife would would probably bring up if she was here is is my inability to disconnect from work and and and taking my work struggles and thoughts and and fires that I was putting out while I'm here in this room, and once I cross that door and go hang out with them, I'm still thinking about that stuff and it and definitely affects my attitude and it affects my attention and and all that. I used to work in an office space and drive to work every day for a couple minutes. And that used to be my form of decompressing between working in the office, I get to drive a bit and then I get home. But now it's like literally just open that door and, you know, I could I could use a beer or something before I, before I really sink in. Yeah.

So I I'm curious about

how you guys handle it. Hard. Like, especially when you're, you know, you're just crossing over a threshold, but to be able to make that transition to being in sort of family mode. I think, you know, as a spouse, like sometimes it can sort of feel like the business is like a mistress, you know, like there's this level of like distraction and preoccupation with this other thing. And I think if that isn't sort of, you don't have a good handle on that, then it can feel like you're not listening or not present or not really focused on the person in front of you.

And that obviously over the long haul doesn't feel great. So I think having some rituals that help with transition are really important. I mean, I know in my work to go from the intensity of psychotherapy session or the sort of deep emotional work that I do to then go home and be like, okay, what's for dinner? And shifting is really important. So having rituals where you kind of do like the Mr.

Rogers thing where you change your sweater and you change your shoes and you're you're moving your mental space from one place to another. And whether that's like sitting in your office another five minutes and and listening to music and drinking a beer so that you can just sort of decompress or you go for a walk, or you go in the basement and do something else, or you just go sit in your room and have, like, ten minutes of quiet time to make the shift. I think figuring out something that does help you transition is really important.

I'm also curious about how you guys think about planning your your time. Because obviously, we all control our own schedules and we can work whenever and how long we we want. Although, I'm sure my wife would disagree with that. But, yeah, I usually say like, alright, yeah, I'm gonna finish work today by around four and then I'll be around, you know, before dinner to to take care of the kids and and all that. And that becomes 04:30 and and then that becomes five and and like, literally just yesterday, I was like, you know, I'll be done around like four and then she'll be like, is that real four or is that Brian four, which is actually like five or 05:30,

you know?

It's four rock and roll time. Right.

Yeah. It's it's tough. Mean, thing that I've been getting back to that disconnection, you know, or or decompression, I I try to, you know, take the dog out for a bit and let him run. But usually, you know, once I get out of here, it's like a a baby needs needs to be held or, you know, the the kid needs to go to the bathroom or something like that. Yeah.

Honey, I'm I'm just not ready for that right now.

I can't

do I

can't do the diaper. Yeah.

And close. Yeah.

But how do you how do you guys actually plan your, well, I I actually I'm curious about Jordan, you know, you have kids at home, like how do you plan your daily schedule and like, when is your time to work and how do you set those expectations?

We we try to do it's all about expectation management. At least that's how it is with with in my relationship. If if I say I I got a jam tomorrow and I need to make big progress and I'm I'm not gonna stop working until eight, that's cool. But if I don't say that and then and then she in her mental space, it's okay at 05:30, 06:00, he's gonna come upstairs and help me with dinner. And then I don't, that's not cool.

So we try to look at the week ahead where I say Tuesday, Thursday, I'm gonna go to the coworking space and stay late. And then she knows, cool. I could plan accordingly. I can do a babysitter. I can do an I can plan for an easy dinner that night because I'm gonna be juggling three kids in the kitchen.

So it's just about managing expectations for us. That's it. I break that, I feel that it's not cool. She grew up in a very corporate environment. Her dad was super corporate for a really long time, commuted into the city.

So he would go weeks and he travel where, you know, you walk in the door at 08:00, you leave at 6AM and you walk in at 8PM and that's five days a week and there's nothing wrong with that. That's what you have to do. So you can't put the limitation on your husband just because he's an entrepreneur and demand more when if work calls for it, you need to stay longer or do something different. But it has to be communicated. So so we have like flexibility, but if you set the expectation, all good.

If you don't, then then it's not cool.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think we've we've learned how important it is to to use the calendar and especially with kids, like when when there are like doctor appointments coming up or whatever, like just to these are things that like my wife and I didn't really have have to really deal with before we had kids, but now we have to plan it so that, okay, the kid has a doctor appointment next week, I have to make sure that I don't have any calls at that time so that, you know, I could watch one while she takes the other and and yeah. Just kinda planning those things in advance.

Sherry, you have to say something?

Well, I

was gonna say Rob and I do like a a Sunday night kind of business meeting, so to speak, where we sit down and look at the schedule and and just sort of check-in and think about, you know, what does everybody need? Is this a busy week for him? Is it a busy week for me? Do I need to work late? Does he need to work late?

What, you know, what are the hours that we need? Or are we like exhausted and we need a date night? Or I need to go out with my girlfriends because I haven't, you know, put on lipstick for a while. So it's just this sense of like checking in about the practicality of who's picking up who on what day and who's handling what tasks, but also the sort of emotional life of the family. Like who needs time with what child, what child is, you know, needing some alone time or whatever.

And I think that really does help to sort of set the expectations. And like you've said, Jordan, I think as a spouse, like I wanna be super supportive. I wanna say, oh, absolutely whatever you need. But if that's not communicated, then it's just this sort of drift of like, I see you're distracted. And I see that you're not, you know, you're preoccupied with something, but you're not talking to me about why.

And so it's just, I just get irritated. Like, I don't know what's happening.

Yeah. And the needs shift from week to Absolutely. Sometimes sometimes you need more and sometimes you don't. So checking in is good.

Checking in is good. And the other thing we do is we invite each other to a lot of calendar events. We don't have a shared calendar, But in, you know, in Gmail, if I make a dentist appointment for the boys, then I put that on the calendar, I invite her to it. It doesn't necessarily mean she needs to go, but it's on both calendars. And then we get an email, a group email from school that's like one of them has a, whatever, a performance in this evening, or they have a music practice that got moved to this.

Like, it's just boom, boom, boom, boom. It's on our, both of our calendars so that when we do sit down on a Sunday, we look at both of our calendars and they should be synced up with the stuff that matters. You know, if Sherry has a dentist appointment in the middle of the day, that doesn't matter to me because I don't need to cover kids or I don't need but if she has an appointment at six or seven at night to have her hair done or whatever, it's like, okay, I just need to know, you know, I have to be around and I'm gonna do dinner with the kids. So we definitely use technology, really just calendaring to like keep each other on the same page. And when an event sneaks through, not a huge deal, but it's always like, oh, that's not on my calendar.

And it's really kind of jarring like, well, I need to rethink what's going on that day. Actually have a meeting. You know what I mean?

That's when Rob gets mad at me. When you mean you're doing something that's not on the calendar. No, that's not possible.

It has to on be the calendar. So we we we definitely use that a lot to collaborate.

Yeah. I I mean, two two quick things. I know we'll we'll wrap up here in a minute. But the weekends is, you know, really my my wife needs a couple hours a day, or like on a Saturday or Sunday to just go out herself, whether it's shopping or hanging out with with other people, like to get away from the kids, and like that's it's like my duty now to to just make sure that that happens at least once every weekend. So that's that's been helping, I think, everyone.

And then on my end, I've done this for probably the past year since we moved to this place. Fridays are kind of off limits to regular work stuff. I do work on Fridays, but I like my Calendly scheduling work like, people can't book sales calls with me or anything on Fridays. I usually work on, like, fun stuff, like like this podcast today on Friday or, you know, maybe writing a newsletter to to my personal list or something like that so that I can basically work half a day and and and if if needed, I could just take Friday completely off and and do something fun with the family. And, like, it's just always there as as a as an open day.

So I think it it helps.

Good good policy. Block blocks and things up. Yep.

Cool, guys. So I think that's good to to wrap it up there. Rob and and Sherry Walling, thank you guys so much for for coming on. This is this is great.

Fun to talk to you guys.

Cool. So you guys Definitely. Definitely you guys should go check out the Zen founder podcast. It's a good one. And and I guess we'll we'll probably see you guys at at MicroConf in Vegas.

Yeah. The the MicroConf buzz, it's starting. It's starting, isn't it? Pika, if if it was like in Google Trends, would be like the first

opening of the year. Totally.

It's creeping into like every call that I have with people. I'll see you at MicroConf. Yep. You're like,

oh, yep. Go to MicroConf.

Yeah.

All the cool kids are gonna be there.

Right. If you haven't signed up, go to microcomp.com. Oh, I promise. There you go. The the good part is we have we can talk about it, and we have, like, 20 tickets left, I think, to each, both starter and growth, which normally, by this time, you're just like, we're gonna talk about it, and you can't come if you don't have

a ticket. You know?

It's now we actually have have a little bit of of room for it.

I I can't believe it. Like, every year, it's been, like, sell out in, like, five minutes, and you guys are We added

two conferences now. It's twice as big, really.

Yeah. So

Good stuff, guys. Alright. Thanks. Yeah. We'll see you soon.

Take care, guys. Good luck with the diapers.

Thanks.