Welcome to the Two Cent Dad podcast, where we interviewed dads to discuss their journeys of intentional fatherhood while doing work they care about and living a life purpose. I'm your host, Mike Su DIC. Our strategy has been put all the activities in front of a fault. Let him figure out what the right doses don't try to think that we know the right amount of play that is supposed to be sufficient or enough in each of these circumstances. Teach him to find his own limits, to find

his own level of enjoyment and then just give him enough options to find something that Dylan George

today on the podcast. I'm joined by David Hunter, Minor Hanson or D. H. H, as most of you know him by David is co founder of Base Camp, inventor of Ruby on Rails. Also a race car driver, New York Times Best selling author of books Rework and remote David does not disappoint in this episode. As always, he challenges the status quo. He's very opinionated but share some very insightful knowledge in living life and raising kids. So without further further ado, let's get in the interview. David So David you're known as a bestselling author of multiple books of running the very successful Project Management Tool base camp on venting ruby on rails, amongst other things. But just curious. If maybe you could start by taking us way back to what is the very first thing you sold? What is the thing that you got started on this whole entrepreneurial journey of building companies reading books? What is the very first thing that you actually

sold? So the first thing I ever sold Ah, I think maybe there's depends on whether you say solder traded because I got into magic, The gathering, the card game. It's a trading card game, sort of, uh, people used to play and back in when was that sometime in the nineties and try to remember the order here. But I have sort of a lot of memories around the horse trading that the car trading that went on in that that, um, form sort of a lot of, uh, early memories about how to make deals and put things together and give people what they want. Um, so are learned a lot from doing. Ah,

doing that, Especially since with the game, like magic gathering. There's there's a bunch of cards that are very sought after. Types can be very expensive, but it isn't necessarily always the cards that people want when they're trying to put something together. So I kind of started with a very modest deck, uh, set of cars and then traded that all the way up until I had a collection of cards that were worth out of no 50 times what I started with. So that was a That was a really fun experience, really fun. Summer is very intense. Somewhere I spent like, uh, pretty much most of my days trading cards and also playing them a little bit. But I found a lot of interesting in the trading.

I take the other part of it where it took some of those early memories about selling stuff with pirates offer. Actually, um, I used to run a, um, Elektronik bulletin boards of BBs, um, an elite BBS since it was called, which was basically just trading pirate software, which gave me a lot of contacts in the, uh, pirate software world and back in the early to mid nineties way that a lot of this awful was distributed with some CDs. People didn't have the bandwidth to Donald these things. So, um, I kind of got sort of hooked up with selling those,

um, and again, sort of just finding out. Ah, buy low, sell high. Um, getting the connections to get the goods closer to where they were being manufactured. Um, So I think those two of the early formative experiences on making business

So how old were you at this point? I mean, are you great school? This

this? Ah, when I'm I, like 13. 15 Okay, Something that something that range. I mean, I've been making my own money even before getting into commerce, so to speak, I think earliest, maybe I started at 10. Delivering newspapers. Um, quickly find out that sort of manual labor at a fixed rate was not necessarily the

path that I wanted t

get feet where I wanted to go. Selling a product in whatever form it is sort of arbitrage, as it was with the training cards, was both more lucrative, more fun and more engaging. So

yeah, and it sounds like you get kind of like a thrill out of that. You know, you're kind of like learning how to figure out who's collecting what what scarcity and how do you turn that profit? Yeah,

and marketing to There was a lot of salesmanship, actually, that went into the whole trading card game. It was a lot of, ah, so that the way you build, um, or amass more wealth into trading card game is that you take something of lesser value and then you traded to someone sort of even Steven for something of more value right, which basically pushing the position of being the sales person for the thing of lower value, right? This card might not really be as valuable as this other car. That's not really what you're saying, but you're saying like, Hey, this is really the card you need for your deck. This would really complete your dad and make it so much better. This is actually a really rare card.

I don't know where a lot of people run your ass. One. You just try all the marketing techniques which are really the same fundamental marketing techniques. Um, scarcity appeal to authority, um, popularity, All of the things that ah are the root causes of most desires and business you can put to good use in any kind of selling and trading card is ah, good a place as any to learn that?

Sure. So you said you said that you kind of have. The lesson of manual labor was not for you, you know, delivering newspapers. That's one thing you hear from, like you know so much Appears to say, you know, wish you know, you really need to have a job where you have to do manual labor because it gives you an appreciation for running your own business. Or even when you get into, like, something like software that's easier or more scalable. Or, you know it's not a one for one trade off. Do you feel like that was pretty transformative for you two Gonna teach you that lesson early, and then you were able to kind of move to a place where you're you're you're not doing a direct one for one trading hours for money thing?

Absolutely. I think everyone should work manual labor, and I think everyone should work jobs that they hate for some period of time to give them those memories. And those experiences about things could be. And while it's important to do the thing on manual labor, sort of delivering newspapers. I worked at a grocery store and a lot of other stuff, actually all the way through, even concurrently with doing these other things I was doing. We're still sort of having these jobs, too, because it was sort of just a steady income. Uh, you can always depend on. Yeah, I think that was important. But even more important than that was to work for other people in the line of business that you want to pursue and have a bad experience doing.

So the vast majority of lessons that I took away from working at the Internet startup scene and Copenhagen in the late nineties 32 thousands. We're just a treasure trove off things not to do and ways not to act and sort of ways not to configure your company. Waste not to announce things, ways not to do cut bags, ways not to invest. There weren't a whole lot of lessons necessarily about how how to do things, but I could get that from somewhere else. I think it's Maur far more important to feel in your own body. The effects of poor management if you are ever to pursue a career in some form of management, right, Because I think the reason why I had a lot of these poor experiences was that the people who were running these companies that I were part of that never work for someone else in this. Like they were first time at it from a vantage point of considerable power and influence. They were at the top of the stack and they didn't know how it felt to the the subjects of that. And that led to Cem Lots of scenarios where you just go like dude, can't you see how this is making us feel as employees that this is just a shitty way of conducting yourself for instituting change? So it really took a lot away from that which,

to this day continues to inform how I do everything at base camp. Um, always thinking like, Oh, if I was on the other side, If I was sitting and getting this piece of information in this way, how would I feel about that or instituting this change? Um, constantly thinking like, Hey, remember when I was on the other side, remember how that felt, and that is just incredibly valuable.

Yeah, definitely, no, I could definitely see that. I mean, that's that is rare to have. It's almost an empathy, you know, for the people that you're working for you because you've been there. But how do

you and I think that that empathy is, is so people have a lot of sort of just natural empathy, and that's great. But in my mind, there's nothing more powerful than immediate empathy that comes from experience of being in the same situation under the same circumstances. Because it's not imagined. I could just pull back in the memory bank and think off 1000 cases. Well, another thousands lots of cases were I was subject to similar things, and oh, remember Oh yeah, they did a really poor do you have on this because A. B, C and D well, I'm not gonna get up in a, B, C and D. I might get up. And also it's a new and novel ways that I didn't know myself. But at least I can cut down on the most obvious blunders that most people who have not been subject to management from other people go through when they become engers,

right? And so you're short cut in your way to success in a lot of ways, because you're not having to go through all those failures.

Yeah. I mean, is the basic experience having experience with other people's poor decisions hopefully informs you do perform better and have less poor outcomes as a result.

Yeah, so? So, as you go through those experiences, you're obviously, you know, kind of learning, saying, Okay, I'm working for this guy and he's doing a bad job managing or, you know, they made all these mistakes. You're kind of cataloguing those in your mind saying I'm kind of learning from that. But you're I would imagine it sounds like you were intentionally kind of studying these people and and understanding that Did you did you go into I mean, did you have ah, earlier knowledge saying I want to kind of work for myself eventually. Is that something that was,

like, instilled with you and your parents? Like, where did you get that driver? Was it surely that you had such bad experiences? Yeah. I have to work for myself.

I think part of what informed this was indeed does bad experiences. Um, and they just gave me a sense of of thinking If I can see all the things that are wrong here, Um, I think I have a better shot at doing this better. If I was in your shoes like, I'd be doing a better job right now. I'm not, so we're not. And that just pisses me off like I can. I have a hard time seeing things that could be better not being better. And there's just only so much you could do. Like most of these companies, I was at the lowest rung, right, like I was at the entry level. So I knew it well.

I learned that the amount of influence Ah, an impact that I could have from the bottom of the organization was limited, that I could have a bunch of better ideas about how to do things. But if I was at the entry level in the organization, I was not setting the tone. It was not my call. And I couldn't sit well with that. I mean, I'm I'm poor employee in a lot of ways, and many of those ways is because I just I can't deal with things that could be better than aren't made better. Um, and I just sit with that knowledge thinking, like what the Like, I know how this should be better. I know how we could do better. We're not doing it better because nobody's gonna give a shit what I have to say about things,

right? Yeah. So the only way to make sure that people give a shit about what you have to say about things this well, is your thing That wasn't That's a sort of defensive strategy. And perhaps that's particular to my experience. If, on the other hand, I had had the experience that Ah, I've started working these companies that they were greatly run and I had had a lot of success perhaps, Yes, I wouldn't have had us much of a motivation to strike out on my own, which I think is why a lot of entrepreneurs that I know they there's something in their formative experiences that sort of takes them off, pisses them off, actually, um, were they sort of think like,

Well, I can do this better. And if you don't have those experiences, if you actually interestings that aren't working that are working, and people are making good sound decisions, and you go like, Yeah, that's really cool. We're going the right direction. I could totally see how you wouldn't be instilled with this. Need to do things yourself, too. Controlled feet yourself?

Yeah. Is that, um, you know, you said formative experiences in employment. Do you feel like there was a form of experiences when you were growing up? Because a kid, they kind of gave you that context. I mean, my dad was an entrepreneur, so I kind of followed that path to some extent. But he always kind of was starting things, you know, he seemed like he was always kind of exploring these different opportunities. So I felt like that. I feel like that kind of shaped my view and the path that I took. So I was always kind of thinking,

you know, I don't even wanna work for people. It's like I had some of those thoughts that you've had. So it's like I attribute that back Thio, I think you know. So my formative years, but seeing that somewhat modeled just kind of curious. Like what? You know what you're doing you mean, what? How do you write? It's

funny because in many ways is the same formative experiences says I saw a shitty job being done. So my dad was ah, reeling and dealing things to, uh, he was fixing electronics for people. Um, And while there were some influences of sort of putting a good deal together and so on, most of the influences was Dude, you have a terrible management of cash flow. Do you don't have ah, deal pipeline? That makes any sense. The unit sort of approaching these things. Make no sense. A lot of it was basically seeing mismanagement again, right? Something's just done poorly.

Perhaps not realizing at the time. Uh, but coming to that realization that this was a poor way to make a living, not a consistent way to do it. And, um, just a ah, poor leverage, like one unit in sometimes, like, half a unit out. And you just go like, um, I just went eventually what? Like I don't want to do that in many ways. The same setup that's going through manual labor,

right? Like you put one in and you get one out and you just go Yeah, does not. Ah, that's not the magic box that I want to keep putting stuff into. I want to put stuff in where Put one in to get 1000 out, or I put one in and get 10,000 out. How can I set myself up to have that kind of leverage? Um,

yeah, that

makes sense. I mean, that doesn't mean there weren't other role models. I mean, I had plenty of things to look at literature and elsewhere to find the inspiration about How do you thinks? Well, because I think while I do think it's more important in many ways to see things done poorly, it's also important to have some direction of how things could be done. Well, um,

sure, how do you so they just to hit on the kind of upbringing thing, The other big thing, it seems like you have a lot of his confidence just to say that. Hey, I'm gonna I think I could do this better. So that's that takes a lot of kind of self assurance and saying like, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna just try this and and I'm gonna go out there and do a better job than these guys because I've already learned the lessons. But have enough confidence to step out and say I'm gonna I'm gonna do it And I know that you I think you had in the past and other interviews said like You have a low actually really low risk tolerance because you you make pretty sound decisions based on what you've seen in the past. But back to the self confidence thing, it's like, Do you feel like that there were things in your life early on. That kind of taught you that, Or you can always have that like, um because, you know,

in parenting, that's, ah, teaching kids kind of self confidence. Is that Are those things that you felt like was was big in your life? That that gave you that?

Absolutely. I think especially my mom was Ah, an incredible sort of pep talk coach. Um, and there was never any pressure for me to feel bad about, especially around schooling. Um, lots of parents would like, Well, I got to do your homework. You get certain certain grates or your performance in school is tied to or evaluation of you as a person and by infliction or indirection, our love. And that was never the case. There was never linked like that, which basically just instilled in me the since that Well, I could do whatever I want, Like affection and love that I received is not contingent on that.

Um, so in some cases, that men blowing things off in some cases, that meant doing very poorly in a variety of subjects that I didn't care for at that specific moment in time. Um, getting flunking classes. Um, not only flunking classes of what I like even more was doing the math on exactly how much I could skip German language education and not get suspended. I think you could have, like, 21% absentee. So I sort of calculated out what, 21% mended, like, how many of the early classes could I skip and still dodge under the 21%? And I think I got within,

like, a class of two. Like, I think I'd like 20.7 or something at the end. Right? Um knows

that's efficiency

right there. It really Yes, efficiency. And where I use that efficiency was then I translated all the things that I didn't want to spend any time on. It did not spend any time on, like German language education and in some used math. And then I invested all that time and something else that I cared about much more deeply, like running my own elite bulletin board, like starting my own gaming website at 15 or 16 running things that I cared about, not because some report court was going to score me well, like certainly weren't. And it was going to score me worse off word. But I had the confidence from on Ah, love the wooden contingent on results or following the path that my parents wanted me to follow, that I could do that. And I really I do think that that is probably one of the best aspects of what I learned growing up. Yeah,

that, um, part of a two wisdom. The fact that I written about recently we were poor by any definition of Danish society, but it didn't feel like it. Partly that's because Denmark, it's pretty damn awesome at making people were poor much better off than poor people. Most the rest of the world. I think 10 more years. Pretty much at the top of of doing that. Very well. I'm part of it was also again, especially my mother arranging things in such a way that a we didn't feel any loss from that. Okay, so we couldn't buy old things. No.

Okay, um but still, we could have enough of the things that it felt like we were in touch with the other, the social circle. So I could still hang out with kids that weren't pour it all and not feel like a I was an outcast or that we lived a much worse life action back. In many ways, I had the experience of thinking those kids that might have been better off like, I don't want to trade with you. I got one parents. I'll take my parents that are far worse off rather than of your parents were far better off but treat you in these ways, that air, not how I would want to be treated right. Right. So I think that gave me also in appreciation of just the limits of material success. Um, and thus bye direction of that are through that learning that Okay,

Well, it doesn't really like if I don't finish well in school in a certain number of subjects and that mean that can't be a doctor or lawyer or whatever. So what? Yeah, like that. Not going to define me? I'm gonna live a great life regardless, Um, so let me just to some of the things that I really care about the things that I'm really passionate about, and if they turn out to be things that are something that leads to quote unquote success, then that's great. And if it doesn't, then that's also great. Um, and my happiness is not tied to those things, which I think is incredibly important for me now,

looking at things of raising Children is that I want to make sure that path that on, especially since we're such a different situation. I am now like Lou dickless Chrisley, wealthy compared to where we were when I grew up, right, And I think a lot of when I've seen a lot of parents would go through that transition. They end up with some very distorted views of the world that they then pass off, and then their kids grow up to be not like they were, And I'd appreciate the same things and so forth in yeah, overestimating. Oh, I didn't have, like, old the toys when I was a kid. So my kids are gonna have all the toys that they could possibly have because that's the finds happiness, and you just go like ah, no

has. So how are you practically doing that? Because, I mean, that's it seems like to be a hard thing to do, especially if it's a mindset. But it's a It has to be a little bit more intentional almost to limit that and not to give them that mindset or spoil them. You know,

it's funny because there's two sides of that one. Is this whole notion of spoiling, um, which I have also the problems with us? Well, um, because it is sort of this artificial scarcity. There's a lot of people say, like, Oh, while you make sure you don't like, give your kids everything that they want right, because they need to learn how to work for things themselves that, like Dad's, the true grit and so uninterested ago, like Actually, no,

that's not my experience, like that's not how that's not the key things that I took a way of being good about my childhood, that I had to sort of past newspapers around to buy the toys that I wanted. Like, if I was gonna take anything away from that, like a certain wasn't that aspect of it that isn't the thing I want to pass on. Um, I'd much rather pass on this notion that it just doesn't matter that much. But you can have all the toys in the world that doesn't make your happy kid right. You can be allowed to have all these things and again doesn't make you have a kid. And it certainly does not make you happy and adult the number of adults that I know who have quote unquote everything and they're still not the happiest people on earth. Um, there's a great overlap between those groups. So what's more important for me is to instill a sense and cultivate a sense of the things that really matter. And to me, the things that really matter is being passionate about things,

as in you want to do them for their own intrinsic motivation, not for the extrinsic stuff. And that's why I think the spoiling part, Like the over anxiety about spoiling your kids. Didn't you trick that in? Well, well, I mean, I'm really gonna teach my kids. The hard work is the path to, ah, successful and Greg life, Right? So, Okay, if you do the dishes and you do these things,

then you're gonna get this thing. It's just setting things up in a reward cycle, I think is not only think, but have since been, um, well informed by people who actually studied this stuff that that is actually a really bad mechanic. Um, a way of teaching people self reliance and happiness. And so one doesn't happen by setting up these carrot reward cycles where you're you have these Ah, these carrots that kick in when they do think they don't want to do. In fact, that's the last thing I would teach my kids. The last thing I want to teach my kids is that Oh, just duel these things that are actually really shitty that you actually don't really want to do because then we can get these things that you think you want, even though you'll realize that actually, they don't matter that much,

right? right. So that's how I've ended up basically having, ah and sort of notion that spoiling in terms of, like, toys or whatever that is not something I'm going to worry about. And he's done in the material sense. So if Colt wants ah, toy car like you have a toy car, a toy car might cost $4 right? I could totally see, like someone thinking like, Well, I mean, they should learn to sort of assassin money to learn the value of money, and then they should buy that stuff themselves and just go like,

No, it just it just matters like that's not the most important lesson here. Like he wants to play with 10 toy cars. And I have to buy a toy cars at $4 each or whatever. Um, okay, like, how does that matter? So anyway, that's one part of it. Um, the other part of it that I found is that I pretty strong believer, sometimes to my own detriment of my happiness in the short term of letting kids figure out their own limits. So another sort of parenting thing is like, Oh, how much screen time do you allow your kids to have.

How much time can they sit in front of an iPad to do it? And my general principle there is You can sit in front and I play it as long as you want. And until you're tired of it and know what happens, they get tired of it. At least that's what happened in the case of my son, right? Like when you first got that, he was like, This is the greatest thing ever. And he was on it for, I don't know, three hours before hours a day far beyond the limit of what also clever people supposedly say is you should have let me do a screen time to one hour a day. Why would I wanna build up a sense of scar City that, like, this is scarcity in order, right?

Yeah. More valuable. I'm gonna want to do it more when I could have it less. Yeah. So our strategy, at least in the in the broad sense of it have been you just play your iPad as much as you want. And what happened? There was an intense face off using the iPad aton. And then there was a face of realizing action. I'm done with this. I'm bored. Let's play with some toy cars building Legos.

But that's not right. But that's predicated on those other things being available and you somewhat promoting those other things, right? I mean, it's You have to, uh, also offer the better alternatives because I think those are more fulfilling. In the end. I mean, see that with my kids, you know, it's like they'll play the iPad and they're like, glazed over and they might watch a show or two, but like my son was playing with Legos, he's like, into it. He's asking me to come play with him,

and it's like You can see that he enjoys it better because it's not just mushing his brain. I mean, I love him. I'm not. Yeah,

my aspect it's do that. It doesn't much their brains that much like I played an ungodly amount of video games growing up, and I want to make sure that cold place at least a fair share off that. So in my mind, it's actually it's very important for him to get his daily dose of electronica. I am certainly not Oh, you can only play with the ecological Lego tree stops here and then like, that's what's gonna teach you how to be a wholesome person. I mean, come on, give me a break. So that being said, like I wantto for him to just figure out what? What do you enjoy doing? What are you, natural? What are your natural limits?

And as you say, Tony predicates on having the choices available, right? One of the studies that come to mind with this is it was a famous study on ah, cocaine addiction. Where there some lab rats running around inside a cage where it just has to dispensary of cocaine. And the big conclusion from that study was well left to its own devices. The rodent will go for the cocaine and eat it until it dies. And you go like, Oh, this is so horrible. Like if someone has cocaine available, they'll just take cocaine until they die, right? And for a very long time that studies stood undisputed. And I think in the mid 2000 there was another study that came out The basic said,

Yeah, but if cocaine is in one of those dispensers and then in the same room. There's also a spinning wheel. There's some water for them to splash in. There's other rodents to play with. Guess what? They don't just eat cocaine until they die. They do other things too, right? And I think that that's the parallel. But I, uh, like to point This, too, is if the iPad supposedly is cocaine. Yes.

If that's the only thing you put it like the choices to be ISS is. Either you play with your iPad or your bored out of your mind. Yeah, people gonna Our kids are gonna play with their iPad all day long. But if the choice is played with your iPad, play with your car's read a bunch of books run around outside. What's your show? Help cooking. How do other things I'll run to the store. Helped do any of this variety or buffet of activities, right? Well, they're not just gonna kick pick the thing that quote unquote must sister mind.

Yeah, and I

get all this stuff is sample size to me. Remember my own childhood and watching one kid grow up. And then I mean slightly informed by the academic studies that I read that I'm sure is also biased to which reading things that held in the biases that I already have. But still, um, that's not to say there are other kids that would just if given the choice, have an iPad and then just wish their brains out. Maybe maybe that happens.

Another. They're doing that in a room where maybe they're doing it, like in their own bedroom, where they're not, I mean, where their parents aren't cooking or they're not your modeling to those things that you find value in. I mean, you find value in the video games, but you also find value maybe in cooking or race car driving as you do. And it's like if you don't have that, then yeah, there it's the cocaine scenario. But you're also it's not that it's available. I feel like it's almost predicated on modeling it and finding enjoyment and satisfaction in it, you know? You mean those are

our strategy has been put all the activities in front of Colt. Let him figure out what the right doses don't try to think that we know the right amount of play that is supposed to be sufficient or enough in each of these circumstances teach him to find his own limits, to find his own level of enjoyment and then just give him enough options to find something that that he'll enjoy. I 10 times rather have him sit with a smile on his face, playing the I Pathan him with a frown on his face, playing with some stupid shit that I gave him that I wanted him to play with, because that fulfilled my notion of what is supposed to be Hold some play, right? I mean, talk about the tyranny of, uh, of parental choices. Um and I mean, it serves us well to that. Maybe it's because our genes air cultivated but this, but he's having none of it s. So whenever we try to dictator superimpose our choices on it,

he's pretty quick to say, I don't like those choices. Actually, at the literal quote, I don't like the assurances, um, so I feel like that's pretty well instilled already. So even if we should have been on board with this, maybe we would have gotten on board with it. Simple, because that's his personality.

And you, the apples and fall too far from the tree. It has taken them.

No, I think that is, Uh, that's quite out, which is It's a really funny thing because, especially small kids, you just go like how much nurture could already have influenced this. You just go like there's the genes are playing a role here, and there is something that's just mapped out from pretty early age, since terms of stubbornness and, um, sort of desire to walk to your own beat on dso forth and just go like that's It's interesting. And we saw that even from him being like one year old, But you just go like that can't be that much cultural influence that dictates that when he just runs off and he wants to do is something, though he didn't even look back at us, right? I get just that fearlessness that the some kids half,

which I mean, I'm sure that's not a universally good thing. If you're a jungle, that perhaps that's the thing to get you eaten by a tiger, right? Yeah,

No, that's I think it's so fascinating. I think you'll be you because you have a 2nd 1 on the way, right? So that that's like, really fascinating to see both of them, like when my daughter was born and there my son of my daughter, pretty different personality. And it's so interesting to see them interact and how early on that was so different, right? But they get along well, but they're just way different personalities, and it's just, I think it's so fascinating. You know, the nature nurture thing is is crazy. I mean,

one of the examples is what you're talking. It's like the my my daughter is actually Maur, you know, just self assured self reliant. And my son is more just kind of He'll go along with the flow, so she'll kind of take advantage of him in some ways. Like come just, like rip it away out of his hand and held us back. Okay, whatever, you know, and it's like, you kind of have to be like, you know, you shouldn't have to do that, you know,

like you say. You don't have to like, you can't have to correct it a little bit, but at the same time, you know, you kind of let them kind of sort that out, You know, like, you know, he might not let her do that all the time, But sometimes he'll be like, he'll stick up for himself and go grab it back, you know? So you gotta just let them kind of sort out learn, you know, which is really interesting.

Actually, I'm I'm curious to see how it's gonna shake out. Got, like, another months ago. And then there'll be two of them.

That's great. So curious. You know, your have your wife and you always been on the same page with this style of parenting and some of your thoughts and stuff.

Yes, actually, in very large terms, surprising beyond on a similar foot here. We have biases that tell very much in the same direction and read the same sort of studies and come to the same conclusions. And there was kind of discussions. S o There really hasn't been a lot of, ah, conflict there, which I'm happy. I, uh I think that Ah, I could just imagine if you have a style where, like, well, you do wanna impose your sense of, like,

what proper play is Any of these other things that aren't as much is just going with what kid wants to dio. Um, that could lead to more of ah, more of a conflict. So we thankfully, been spared that it's hard enough even when you do agree to, um, sort of deal with a kid like,

Yeah, I hear you on that one. Definitely. Um, so you mentioned some of the studies that you guys kind of of red, You know, that cocaine study that you talked about? What are some other like books or papers or, you know, thinkers out there that have influenced your parenting style?

I think, um, the main one is Ah, guy Alfie Kohn. Um, who's ridden Tana Books. He does oldsters of studies on kids and learning styles and so forth. Um, and many of the topics that we've been talking about it's all been taken out of the book titles that he has. Yes. Ah, a good book called The Myth of the Spoiled Child. You can see some of the stuff we've been talking about. Their, um he has another one called Punished by rewards. Um, which this isn't all just to do with kids punished by rewards in particular,

is informed a lot of what I think about employees and employers. Relationships A swell. Um alongside this notion of intrinsic motivation and how important it is to protect that, um, on the topic of intrinsic motivation, there's a great boat book called Flow Bye and Mikhail on that, then I can't pronounce this last name, but, um, Dapple gun flow is just a great dive into why it makes us so happy to be intrinsically motivated by the passions and things were interested in and getting better. Um, many of the reasons why I've came to endure programming and I came to endure racing cars and other activities where you can fall into this flow. It's goes in this trance, this zone where you lose track of time and space. And I think that that's that's been such an important source of my happiness that I want to make sure the colt gets this really early on. That where he invests his time is is things that are intrinsically motivating,

not because some teacher's gonna grade him on it, not because I'm going to say, Oh, what a good kid you are if you do these things, not a peace, not because he's gonna make money off it, not of any of these extrinsic motivators um because I think the schooling system in most of the Western world does its very best at destroying intrinsic motivation. It doesn't very best of reducing learning to a game off getting good grades. Um, and you really have to counteract that force and in my opinion, started early with that counter act. If you want to have any shot at giving your kids the defenses that they need to protect their own psyche and their own motivations and so forth, I think that's one of things that a post my my wife and I have been see and vividly remember, s o how much of learning during the school year's is reduced to Oh, I just want to beat the test, um,

and teach to dis test It's on when you didn't come out on the other side realizing, Well, how much of all the stuff that I crammed to learn to be this test? Can I either still remember? Or can I implore? Why am I even interested in? It's, um, It's a very good way of turning people off continued learning for the rest of your life when you reduce learning. Two distinct. Did you do for other people you do to Pete police, your teachers or your parents or whatever. And no, sir, we don't want any of that one of protect colts intrinsic motivations. Very,

very best that I can. And I mean, even knowing you're up against forces that are in many cases much stronger than yourself. So you can just do your best to give them a shell. Thio hopefully counter active?

Definitely. So what you guys doing for education, then I mean, is beyond, you know, when he gets into schooling age, are you guys? Is there special school? You send it to home school or what does that look like for that

stage? Yes. So one of the main things that, um, I find funny is a lot of people in tech, especially people in sort of San Francisco area and that sort of aspect of the texting are very much like, oh, stem research and getting people started getting kids started really early on. And, like I got to get them into Harvard, I got to get them into Stanford. I gotta get into these elite institutions. And then I think of my experience and my wife had a similar experience like we did not go to top tier schools. We did not go too tough to universities. We did not get a quote unquote top tier or not education, schooling. But we got to talk to your education in many ways.

And it was because we care to nurture that education that we took away, that it's far more important to be someone who is fully engaged in learning everything there is to learn about a certain subject at Podunk University than it is to be someone who's completely This is a solution and jaded going to Stanford. Yeah, that's the dichotomy. It doesn't have to be that stark, but I think there's truth to when you set things up and I've heard this. We've heard this thing about even just preschool stuck to kid like Oh, yeah, so if you want to get into this preschool like please apply 12 minutes in advance, there's this 12 paper application process, and we'd like to see your old friend interview and I just go like you've been kidding me. Like Why want Cole to do at three or 45 year olds is run around, bump into things, jump off told stuff than kind of hurt himself and otherwise just have a blast. But he's

gonna be by David is gonna be way behind that the rest of the pack

back. Exactly. This is the just sometimes just blows my head where just go like you're seriously telling me that at Kitts age four, you're thinking about which university he's gonna get into by pickup, which pre school he goes to. Holy shit. Your life is hell and I would not want it for all the good in the world, People in this situation probably think this is what I have to do. It's just a competitive world. Have you seen the Chinese to studying the crazy? They're turning out. So many engineers were locked right? And I just go like mother like that is what? Living in fears like what a miserable experience and how can we not have that experience? In fact, we just had this experience you in Spain, so cult started in a Montessori school.

I think there's otherwise a ton of good things about Montessori, and they have a lot of the right ideas. Well, this particular incarnation of the Montessori school was started by some Brits who also had the British influence of respect is very important. You should have respect for your literally That was their key words. Like if they tried to sum up the whole school like the one word they picked with respect. And I just went like that should have set up alarm bells as loud as anything because respect is probably the last word that I am interested in when we're talking about a three year old. I don't want this for the year old. To respect for anything like that is very, very low on the list of priorities that I have for a three year old right is respect. So, um, fast forward. This was not a good fit for Colt. Um, he did not suited Lee respect his teachers,

so he didn't have a good time because he wasn't this docile kit that just did everything that they wanted him to do at the times that they wanted him to do without protest. Right? So he protested loudly, and we came to the realization that yeah, this was in the right school. So we took him to another school where the keyword was not respect where the over the teacher's little more interested in just having three year olds and four year olds run around and be three and four year olds. And lo and behold, he's thriving, doing great. And, um, everything is wonderful. That's wonderful. It's three and four year olds Could be, which is, like,

complete maniacs. The one second and cuties things unearth the next second. So you still have to Jekyll and I think, but, um, yeah, so Dad only reinforces the whole setup, right? That, um so being left behind as a three year old. What, like, what is it that you're gonna learn from grade one to grade 10? That's so damn important that is gonna dictate the rest of your life if you aren't at the head of the pack. Bullshit. Nothing.

I just need to learn to read and write. And, most importantly, deliver developed a love of learning that you will carry forth with you. And, um, that's it, or well, then the kid won't get into the most prestigious college. So what, Right. Yeah. I mean, the correlation that I've seen between people who went through a lead schooling and happy people, poor in many cases, I'd say negative.

Yeah. So, um, the whole thing which are set up is is how do you live a good life? How do you have a happy good life having a have a good life? Um, as I said, I believe very vaguely and poorly correlated with quote unquote top tier education. Um, very vaguely important, Related with making all the money in the world and so on. Um and then people say, Well, this is for you to say you've made yours and so on so forth. Yeah, I did at after age 26 then I had,

like, up until 26 where did none of those things and had none of those things. And I was a pretty happy kid again. Some of this is situational. Some of this is societal, or you're gonna have a worst time being a poor kid in the U. S. I gave it to you that, um So I get where some of the, um anxieties come from. That does not make them productive. So at least being upfront about what your fears are and so forth, I think, would be a step forward.

So what I mean, just to kind of bring it to close. I mean, that's what you know what? They're some of the things that you would say to someone that's new, a new parent, you know? Sounds like what you're saying. A lot of is starts at, you know, at the individual level, starts at the parents level. I mean, having that, having that intrinsic drive, having that appreciation for a good life and not just chasing carrots. But,

you know, if you if you were to give some piece of advice, that one or two, you know, nuggets of advice to a guy that comes through and says, Hey, David and I just found out my west pregnant having a baby here in about nine months. And you know what, David? How did you get that one, kid? What do you know? What can you tell me? You know, what do you say to that guy?

Sure, I would, uh, give him ah, reading list or her a reading list, um, of books that help explain these arguments in very clear terms. And I think the myth of the spoiled child, punished by rewards and story system, the guide to a good life. That's great. Start right there. Um and I think taking some of this pressure out of it, I think there's just a lot of parents who feel like a lot of intense pressure very early on. Like, I gotta get the best for my kid. I could get the best friend,

and they don't see the systemic risks in, um, seeking this quote unquote best for your kid. Um, the definition of what best is matters quite a lot. And if the definition of best in your particular case is gets ah, high paying job or gets an Ivy League education, or simply that I think you're already like you're already off into the weeds, those might be means to some end. I don't think they're means to very many important ends. But even if they are, they're still mean, like, figure out what the end is. And for me, it's,

um I want cold To have The happy's life is enough. And the road the lips of that leads to that is is again poorly correlated with these other traditional factors of ah, success. Um, so, yeah, just chill out. Calm down again. This is sort of, from my perspective on my perspectives does not include someone who lives on $18,000 a year in the U. S. Can't afford health care or feeding their kids like that's the case. I mean, freak out,

by all means, although

I don't think that necessary helps. But you have a different life circumstances to me, and I don't know if I can help that much. Um, I think there's a sort of radius where your experiences more applicable to other people, and my radius is ah Maur with people who have a lot of the core comforts of life squared away. Um, so the further you get away from that, the, uh, the less it may apply award that other things might be more important. Still, I don't think that what one last thing I'd say is is, um, it's been a great um, uh, sets of studies,

and I think there's even a book. It was summarized and trying to remember who published this about the suicide rings in, uh, near San Francisco in Silicon Valley that I thought were extremely informative. That pressure that gets talk about coming out of those environments of quote unquote the best schooling with the sort of most achieving parents and so on are horrible. Also, studies coming out saying that kids from that sector like there, um, they're just as bad with crime, although the crime tends to be more or less sort of petty after violence and war, in the case of, uh, drugs and abuse and autos of other so delinquent behavior, so to speak, to as coping mechanisms to deal with this intense pressure of having parents that are intent that a successful life goes through and education Stanford and a job at Google and working on life altering things Um, it was, maybe you can find it for the show notes. But I thought that was just a great summary of all these things that are bad about quote unquote ambition.

Yeah, definitely. They it's It's so much built up on something, toe. Lose it, it seems like, and that's what I mean. You seem like you're background. It was like coming from more humble beginnings. You didn't have this pressure that there's something to lose, but not only that. You saw the lifestyle of the quote, you know, successful people and said, I don't really like that. You know, that's not necessarily something I want to maintain, and I appreciate it.

This whole notion of something to lose comes from a position of something or fear. And when your parenting style or direction and life is driven by fear, you've already shut off many of the important parts of your brain and reduced it to this lizard mode fighter flight on there. Far more interesting things to pursue in this world when you can liberate your mind from the change of fear and just get into a little bit of logic with a passion and a little bit of

more positive emotions and get rid of this year, I couldn't agree more. Thanks for listening to the show. You can find out more about us and sign up to receive updates at two cent dad dot com. If you liked what you heard or just want to say, Hi, you can shoot me an email at Mike at Tuesday. Dad dot com. Please leave a review on iTunes if you like. The show helps us to get the word out to the most people possible. The podcast production is done by Maria Van Dyke in, and the show has made possible through the support of E C Group International Building software teams since 1999.