Welcome to issue #064 of Unicorn Parents. I share practical insights and reflections to help you build a profitable business without missing the magic at home. If you’re serious about winning at work while raising great kids, you’ve come to the right place. This is a community built for ambitious parents who want both.
My grandfather was a compact man.
Small in stature, but concetrated in strength.
Everything about him felt contained.
His movements. His words. His emotions.
Nothing spilled over. Nothing seemed wasted.
Every morning, he followed the same routine:
Stretch.
Walk.
Eat two tomatoes.
Read the newspaper.
Suit up.
Take me out.
I loved my grandfather.
He also had this distinct smell. Musky, but fresh. Aftershave mixed with the smell of an older man.
One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t get to see him off when he died.
He went away so suddenly.
These past few months, my kids have gotten to spend a lot of time with their grandparents (= my parents).
I love that.
There’s immense benefit to intergenerational mingling.
BUT…
Life is crazy.
The other day my wife said, “I need alone time.”
She’s right.
As much as we love grandma and grandpa, sometimes we need boundaries too.
But something unexpected has happened from spending all this time together.
I watch my mom interact with my kids and find myself thinking:
“Oh wow. I shouldn’t do that.”
And then:
“Oh wow. She did that to me.”
There’s nothing quite like watching your parents interact with your children to understand your own childhood.
I call it mirror therapy.
I see what I am.
I see what I was.
And I start seeing what I want to change.
I’ve probably been too generous with myself for most of my adult life.
I like to think I’m different from my parents.
More self-aware.
More evolved.
An exception.
I’m not.
The apple really doesn’t fall that far from the tree.
And then I look at my kids and see the same thing happening again.
I used to say “I’m sorry” too much and too easily.
Even when I had nothing to apologize for.
Now I hear my kids doing it.
I used to get incredibly agitated when things didn’t go exactly my way.
I’d feel this heat rising inside me until I exploded.
I see flashes of that in them too.
Some of what passes from generation to generation is beautiful.
Some of it isn’t.
The hard part is that dysfunction doesn’t usually announce itself as dysfunction.
It just feels normal.
It’s how your family does things.
Until someone decides to examine it.
And I’ve realized the same thing is true of entrepreneurship.
We build companies the way families build cultures. We do it through thousands of repeated behaviors.
How we respond when we’re disappointed.
How we handle conflict.
How poorly we apologize.
How tightly we hold control.
How we react when reality refuses to cooperate with our plans.
Founders are particularly vulnerable because, for a long time, nobody is really our boss.
We make it up as we go.
We trial-and-error our way through problems until our improvisations become habits, our habits become culture, and our culture becomes “just how we do things around here.”
Eventually, we can become too successful (or too big-headed) to receive correction.
Not just from other people.
Sometimes even from our own conscience.
That’s why I’m increasingly convinced that raising kids and building companies require the same uncomfortable discipline:
You have to keep looking in the mirror.
Sometimes I literally ask myself:
“What’s wrong with me?”
Not because there must be something wrong. But because I know myself.
Sometimes it takes a question that harsh to notice the log in my own eye.
My grandfather gave me things I’m proud to carry.
My parents did too.
They also gave me things I need to put down.
And inevitably, I’ll give my kids both kinds of things as well.
Maybe good parenting isn’t breaking every generational cycle.
That’s probably impossible.
Maybe it’s becoming aware enough to decide:
What do I want to carry forward?
What needs to end with me?
Building an extraordinary family (like building an extraordinary company) begins with self-awareness.