people show commitment in two ways. People show commitment and their calendar, and people should come in their wallet, right? So if I if I really say that, I'm that I'm family first I have to ask myself, You know, how am I spending my money? Like in that contact?

That's Ryan dice from digital marketer dot com. And he's the guest today on the Tuesday Dad podcast, and he talks about just the basics, things that he does to ensure that he's putting family first. A lot of it is just habits that he does, ensuring that him and his wife are on the same page. And he shares the story about how he went from 16 hour plus days, too, dialing it back and regaining focus. So without further ado, let's jump right into the interview with Ryan. Today we have a very special guest on the podcast Ryan dice, and he is the founder of digital marketer dot com, which is a community of marketing professionals. And he's also a serial entrepreneur. Very active member of the Austin, Texas,

startup community spoken at very numerous conferences around marketing, but most importantly related to this show. He's a father of four Children and so wanted to have him on to talk about kind of his journey in entrepreneurship, the successes they had and how he has or has not sacrificed his family on the altar success. So thank you. Thanks for being here, right?

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

So maybe give us a little background kind of where you're at. Now, I know you've had multiple entrepreneurial ventures and maybe could explain a little bit of a digital marketer dot com is for those of people that don't know kind of talk about how that came, to be

sure, I mean so. Digital marketer dot com It's just a a training site for lack of lack of better words in the learning company. And we train marketing teams and entrepreneurs and agencies How to be better at digital marketing. And really, the way that it came about is through my own, like you said, entrepreneurial endeavors. So I started my very first company from my dorm room in 1999 while I was a freshman at the University of Texas at Austin. Actually started that company so I could afford to buy an engagement ring for the girl I was dating at the time who, uh, later on and still is my wife and mother of ah, mother, my kids So entrepreneurial Journey was inspired very on very early on by by familial ambitions. But, um but yeah, along the way,

I've started different companies, and I always did two things I want Always talked about what I was doing. Yeah, I would I would share what I was doing and I did that early on. It was very practical. I did it because I found that there was a market for, uh, for my advice. There was a market for my, for my content, for my training, so really before there's a lot of people out there selling courses, you know, before there was the the the U to me and really the entire this movement that now exists, um, of people teaching and training.

Um, I kind of looked into it. I stumbled into it and and I found that people would pay to sort of watch me build companies. And from my perspective, that's what uh, provided the funding for me to go and launch some of these different businesses. So I started teaching so that I could afford to start other companies. So for me it was kind of this this side thing that I did it was almost like, you know, I guess it's it's comparable to a lot of people do Service's while they're building software, right? They might run an agency and then they build, you know, And then what is? The side project becomes the real thing, and the,

you know, in the service is kind of go by the wayside. For me, teaching and speaking was the thing that I just did on the side. The difference is it never went away. You know, I remember at one point we decided, Let's go and do it events we didnt event That was trafficking Conversion Summit 10 years ago. And I remember the third year that event. There's nearly 1000 people in the room, and I said, This is not just a side thing I do to make extra money to fund my you know, entrepreneurial a DHD. This is this is a thing. This is a real business. I should you know,

I should treat this like a real business. And it's also the business that I really love you know, I I love teaching, and I love I love the training aspect of it. And I love the discovery of finding something new and being able to share that with others. So, um, that's why you know, when we decided my partners and I to divide up the company and really kind of divide and conquer a little bit, I wanted to really take on digital marketer, as you know, as my as my project. So I'm fortunate in that I get to, um, get to own and I get to participate in, and I get to advise a lot of different companies, but my day job is running digital marketer, and that's really fun for me.

That's great. Um, so I heard speaking of years talking about teaching, and you're talking about how a lot of this came out of just kind of your pragmatism of view of have being Ah ah. You know, marketer, I was watching a talk that you gave I think in Austin, and you talked about you were, I think, a web designer self taught web designer. But you were you were doing a job for a company that was a lactation consultant. Yeah. And you talked about the stories? Yeah.

To tell him that story ever built. Eso was 1999 and I figured the dot com boom was in full swing. The bust happened yet occurred, and I thought, What better way to get in then to teach myself Web design and by teach myself web design? I mean, I got had Microsoft front page, and we go live like this was not any sort of advanced coding or anything like that. So I'm run around pitching. My service is as a Web designer, and the only person who would give me a chance was this'll woman who was a lactation consultant. Kind of. I told everybody I knew him doing web design. You know this on a web site for, like, $500. So and you're a friend of a friend of a friend got back around to this woman who's like,

tasting consultant, and she's like, Okay, I need a website, You know, I'll hire you, but I can't pay you until the website to done. And, you know, long story short, she wasn't able to pay me. Your husband wound up losing and losing his job. She had to go back to work. She didn't either website anymore. But one of things that she had me do was to help produce this e book on how to make your own baby food and s o because from her thinking, pretty smart lady from her point of view,

she said, You know, when once I've kind of shown women howto have about a breast feed once, once they're nursing so successful they don't really need me. So I want to kind of stay on it, still be involved in their you know, their lives even after their kids weaned. So I'm gonna teach him how to make healthy baby food. I mean, that's really howto ahead of her time on some. Yeah. Yeah, very, very, very, very cool. Eso as payment because she couldn't any cash for the website was like, Why don't you just keep this? You know this book on how to make your own baby

food so you don't want to it for years and then you used it. You know what, 10 15 years later for

your own kids, right? I know. Actually, what I did is the very next day, I built a simple little website to sell the book on how to make your own baby food s. So that was the start of my publishing of my digital publishing efforts and true and just put up a simple one page website optimized for how to make your own baby food. I think the time, um, go to dot com, which was the predecessor to two yahoos. And it was a predecessor to Overture, which is a predator predecessor to Yahoo's ad network, which some some of those folks were poached to build. Google's AdWords ad platform s Oh, this is this is back when Google was a science fair project, right?

I mean, this is when this is pre Facebook and, you know, I'm walking uphill in snow both ways to school kind of thing. Um, but, you know, it works. I sold a couple copies of that of that little e book every single day at 14 bucks a pop in for a college kid, You know, an extra free $30 a day was, uh, was pretty sweet money. And then that's when I thought I should I had 100 of these really be something. And so that I was coming. That's sort of my first. My first entrepreneurial efforts was trying to bail myself out of getting, ah, stiffed on a web design build from a lactation consultant.

Sheer, just like necessity is the mother of invention, right?

Yeah, that's I don't think anybody would have drawn up that

business plan. Yeah, exactly. Well, so fast forward then. And I know you've been at digital marketer building that over the last 10 years, I think. But also lines up with your kids are about that age. So it means you you became a dad in that period while you're growing your business. So talk about maybe, um, you know how you balance that. You know what? What? You know, maybe maybe you had these thes ideas in these ambitions. And how did those change after you had kids?

And then how have you balanced the journey of scaling up the business while having young kids? Because I know it's very time demanding, um, you know, when your focus and your outlook on life, you know, can go up and down, You know, through that journey, So

yeah, well, I mean, you know, it changed so much. So I have four kids on my oldest is Ah, about certain 13. My youngest was about to turn seven, and, um and I remember when my you know, my wife told me that she was pregnant, that she was pregnant with our son. I mean, it was a surprise to both of us. Um, we certainly weren't we? We got married.

We got married the weekend after we graduated from college. Mentor. Freshmen, You're very weak enough after we graduated. And I think less than two years later, you know, there, there you go. She's pregnant. But that wasn't what we're necessarily planning to do. Um, and I had just really gone full blown into my into my company like that was when I said Okay, this can't just be a hobby. I've got to make this a thing. And, um,

we had a house and you know, all the stuff the young family is gonna have and then find out that that spending So it was It was a key motivator. There's nine months, you know that that she was growing that kid Cohen. Jonathan. I was the most active and motivated I've ever been. And of course, she's like, Yeah, go do what you gotta do. Um, And when Jonathan was born, uh, early on, it was great because my business was just me, you know,

she would help me out a little bit, but we kind of had an agreement early on that she was gonna be actively involved in the in the business. We just didn't want that for, you know, for a marriage, you feel like that would be good for us. I know the couples. You make it work. We just didn't feel like it did for us, but she helped out a little bit, but in general, just me. And so no one can

stop you there for a second. How did you guys reach that understanding and tell me about that conversation? Because I know that people that are either starting businesses or in businesses, that is a That's a point of I would say contention. But I know there's always a balance with how much you share. How involved are you how? I mean you're obviously involved to some degree, But tell me about that kind of how you get sorted that out.

Yeah. She said First of all, I mention that I wanna be your wife. Andi. I don't want if something is hard If something's tough at work, like, I don't want to also be sharing in that because then who do we have to turn to? And we have got some advice from, ah, and really good counsel from, you know, an older gentleman that I knew who, um, he had been entrepreneur his whole life and he said, Just be really careful about that. If you're gonna do it, make sure that there's a clear division of labor.

Is it that my advice would be Don't do it and really and have that conversation early on. And so thankfully we did. So we got some really good advice Early on, we had that conversation. She said, I don't know. I don't want to work for you. Um, no. One. I want to work in the business like, you know, I want I want to be a mom and and I I don't I don't have to do I don't do any of that stuff. So, you know, if I have too,

that's one thing. But if you're asking if I want to the answers now. So we had that conversation, really, Before she even got pregnant. And so I'm glad that we did. That was that was a good thing. Um, but it meant like so Now there's this little baby and I'm thinking this is great. I could be super dad. You know, I can I can wake up early. I could do the feedings. I could do all those things because I'm not going into an office. I'm working from home. Yeah,

and, Ah, and then it completely got me off off track in terms of productivity, right? No. No way. No way. That zippo shocker right through this, like, you know, this tiny little time bomb in your world. And you gotta figure out what is this new reality? And I'm sure like a lot of people, I didn't I didn't. You no justice. Well,

and so the business began to decline. Income began to decline, right, as expenses were beginning to go up. And, yes, I dove back in, but in general it was fine in general is fine. We were able to make it, were able to make it work. Um, and the business began to grow and it began to improve. Um, you know, found out that, you know,

a couple of years later, again if you do the math, right, 7 11 9 13 This was every two years, you know, Here comes a baby number two, and now we're in a bigger house, right? Because we need to get a bigger house. Apparently, our previous house was big enough, even though it was it was fine. But now we had to get a bigger house, and I've got, um I no have, ah,

bigger house because I have a bigger business. I can afford it. I have an office with a couple of employees and ah, and the You know, the unfortunate thing is, I think about, you know, my oldest daughter. I don't have a lot of memories of the first year or two of her life. I mean, I do like I go back to look at pictures. I was there. It's not like I was this dad that was just gone. I was I was I was there, but I wasn't there. If that makes sense, I was I was physically present, but I wasn't really emotionally present because my mind and everything that I was going on, every all the significance that was swirling around me was all around the business and trying to keep everything going. Do

you think that was necessary? Or do you think there's another way you could do that? Because I think you know, there's obviously seasons in life where year you're gonna have to give some of that dedication. Um, but like if you look back on that and you say, Okay, I don't I don't necessarily like that factor that was You know, it's hard to say I can't I don't have those memories or it seemed like a blur or something. What would you have done differently? It's easy to say, What would you do differently? But what What? Maybe advice. Would you give someone that's right in the thick of that, Um, in how to at least get some of those moments back to preserve a little bit and carve out a little bit?

Yeah, what I did then, because I've asked myself that that's a good question, is when I've asked myself, I'm not, and I'm not sure if I'm just, you know, there's times when I'm being maybe a little bit more self flagellating and like, Oh, you know, you're you're the worst make this time trying to employ revisionist history and make myself feel better. Um, what? I know it was a difficult time. It was a difficult time in the economy. So this was, you know,

my my daughter was born in 2008. So if you think about what was going on 8 4009 the economy wasn't doing well. And in general, my businesses weren't dramatically affected, but I think I feared that thing would be and so I really double down. We're also trying to thio rapidly expand things very quickly. So, um, we were kind of over committing. I didn't really know what I was doing. I mean, I was a new entrepreneur. I was I was learning how to be a manager in a leader, and you figure out all these different aspects of business, and at the same time, I'm trying to figure out what is being a data to look like.

And what I did is I gave myself permission, um, to just go all in on the company, and I said, you know, it's okay the family will be okay. Because, frankly, if I don't take care of this over here than nothing else is gonna matter. Um And I remember one night, you know, my my wife is a very wise woman. She's way smarter than I am to on She came to me and she said, Look, you can keep doing what you're doing, you know,

I know that my married like she knew that she married an entrepreneur like she got. I know I married. You can keep doing what you're doing, but you can't pretend like you're doing it for us anymore. Um, you can tell yourself that you're doing it for for us. I'd be happy to move back into our old house. I'd be happy to move into an apartment. Um, but right now we just don't see any of you. So I'm not saying that you have to stop doing everything, but, um, we don't see you at all. And it's true. I was waking up.

I was generally gone first thing in the morning. I'd come. I'd be home at midnight. Um, I was no help whatsoever. Uh, home with the kids. And now she's got you know, a baby and a toddler? Um, yeah. And, you know, looking back on it, I don't know. Did was it difficult?

Was I just being pathetic? Like I didn't wanna have to deal with the early morning style for, you know, the toddler, You know, days now you go to work. But again, looking back on it, I wouldn't have fun either. It was just, I think, was a difficult season, and I didn't handle it well, and And when she said that, I said, Okay,

I'm not gonna do that anymore. Like I'm gonna leave it fine. And let's see what happens. And the reason I can tell you is I didn't have I know for a fact I didn't have to do it is because magically, when I just said I'm gonna keep a normal schedule, I'm gonna show a work around nine. I'm gonna leave around five or six. That's not You know, that's just normal. Everything. The same amount of stuff still got done and and just applying some of those constraints. And she said, Look, I don't expect you to be home all day every day, like you were. You know,

when? When Jonathan born. I get it. You've got a company in people in office. But, you know, you should at least be home for dinner every now and then. Um, how That probably went on for 12 to 18 months before she sort of cracked me upside the head.

So what was it? Was it her that pushed you over the edge or what were some of your fears? If someone that's listening to this is that's in in the 16 hour, you know, work day mode and they're listening to and they're saying, Yeah, that's great, Ryan, but I don't think I can do it. There's so much to get done. What would what could you say to that person? That's that's not convinced that that you could still get that The constraints are a good thing. I should say, you know that they can actually be really healthy for you. Um, it doesn't take someone close to them to say that and say, Hey, you need to make a change here. Or is it something else? You know,

you just got to get out. I mean to me what it was it was ego, right? It was. It was I decided that I was the type of person who was so important that I needed to do that, and it just wasn't true. So, uh, and it took her or saying what she said, Which is You do it. You just can't pretend like you doing it for us. Which meant you're only doing it for yourself. Yeah, and my That's not my identity, right? My identity is, you know,

uh, whatever's driving it right. My identity is no mean, a family first. And this nun, she's basically telling me you can say that, but you're not living it. And I think one of the challenges I was dealing with is I was miserable, too. I mean, I was working way too hard. I was exhausted, you know, beat my head against the wall. And a lot of it was I was inefficient because I wasn't sleeping. Um,

because I had allowed myself essentially these 16 hour work days. I would also allow myself gigantic chunks of time where I did basically nothing like it went completely unaccounted for. And and so when when she said that like when she came to me and said that it was almost a relief because I wasn't happy either. But I did. I had nobody event too, because that was at least as tired and miserable as I was. What I knew is if I were to go home and complained to her when she had been doing with, you know, two kids all day by yourself, that would be extra stupid. Like I was smart enough to know that I'm not allowed to complain to her. I want to realize that I can't complain to her. I can't complain to 19. I got nobody to come like complain, too, if you're in that position and you've got nobody to complain to,

you got nobody that you feel like you can vent to. What I would say is you're the one Good news, bad news. You're the one who has to fix it. And and sometimes what you need to do is just stop spinning plates and see which ones actually fall. And, um, when I said Okay, I'm just gonna work a normal workday like that's not that much of a stretch. I'm just gonna work in a normal workday. Be superficial on there. I also I remember I had somebody on my team come to me saying, You know, I just I feel like I'm overworked and I just can't get all this done Work done. And I remember wanting to physically murder that person because I think of myself. You show up.

You know what? Nine. You're watching the clock and cutting out in five and you're telling me you can't get your stuff done. Crimea freakin river, homey. I didn't say that. What I said is, that seems strange. I understand that the volume of work you've been given having done it myself, I know that you should be able to get it done in the a lot of time. So there's gotta be something going on. So what I want you to do is I want you to do Ah, Diary of Work Diary. I want you to write down every 30 minutes. What did you do? And I remember asked.

I remember giving this instruction to this person who works for me and thinking, Oh, God, if you did that, you would be humiliated what you saw. And so it was kind of all these things came to came to a head. But I'll tell you if What you're doing is so important, you can't get it done in eight hours. Eight hours is an extraordinary amount of time. It's an extraordinary amount of time. In eight hours, you can fly from New York to London, right? Eight hours is a really, really, really long time.

And if you've got five days of those eight hours like that's an astounding amount of time, Let's see your women stretch it to 10 right? You're gonna eat lunch. Lunch at your table like that is that is in an enormous amount of time. If what you're doing is so complicated that it can't get down in that amount of time, then you've been enough Where you can chew, your model is wrong. You go back to reevaluate. You need to come up with simpler path to get to some type of revenue, just something he's a change. You're you're your model is broken. You were pursuing. That simply won't work and it's time to readjust.

I think that those were really what wise words and it's actually I. I just recently started Thio. I had done this exercise of tracking my time a while back, and I'd kind of got in this creeping feeling of feeling like, Oh, I got too much on my plate, too much on my plate and I started tracking my time again, And it's actually really revealing how inefficient you can be when you're just trying to extend your hours are trying to let stuff. It's like when you actually it is humiliating when you start to look at that and it's like, Okay, what gets tracked and get what's get measured that's actually gets gets changed. I mean, it's like there's, like, a marketing thing in here to, you know, marketing.

My planner is I'm looking across across my desk. I do it every single day, and and it's amazing when you track it, you do a better job. Yeah, you know, just the act of measuring seems to improve things. Um, but there will still be chunks of the day where I look back and, you know, I was doing stuff and I didn't I didn't I didn't take my planner with May. And what did I do from 2 to 3 yesterday? Like I can't account for an entire hour of the day. That's sad. And for me, like okay, that's just a an hour of my life. I'll never get back, but I have nothing to show

for it. Yeah, So tell me. So tell me a little bit about then after you made that shift. You know, you said you still got the work done. Tell me about how that changed your home life and just general life quality and just the downstream effects. I would say of that because I think a lot of you know, um, our time at home is dictated by how good things were going at work. A lot of times a cz Muchas we don't like it to be. And I find that to be the case, whether we're spending too much time or overworked or whatever. So tell me a little bit about the downstream effects of that change.

You know, I'm thankful that, um, you know that the time when this happened, my, uh, my, my, the two kids that I had them when I was really at my worst in terms of just workaholism, the kids were so young that, you know, maybe it's gonna have, like, some long term downstream effects, but so far they seem fine. And they don't remember me being gone. Then,

you know, like my youngest daughter doesn't remember my sons like, Yeah, whatever. Andi. Have great, wonderful relationship right now. So I'm thankful that it was kind of figured out That and then I was, you know, kind of brought to my son since his early a Supposed to be doing that for, like, a decade, and my kids just not knowing who I was. Um, So I just thought that if I really say that that I'm family first and one of things that I teach at digital marketer, You know,

one of our core concepts that we teaches People show commitment in two ways. People show commitment and their calendar and people shook him in their wallet. Right? So if I if I really say that, I'm that I'm family first I have to ask myself, you know, how am I spending my money like in that context? So I you know, going back and re evaluating things like budgeting and do I really need all this stuff or, you know, it would be better to go on certain vacations, but the biggie for me, because the money wasn't the thing I don't. I don't generally ever spend a lot of stuff. You know, kids are fine.

The biggest thing for me was the calendar. And, um so what I did again, It was advice that I got from her from a wiser friend. Said What? You need to do that at the end of every year, and you need to re evaluate it during the summer as well. But at the end of every year, you need to get together with your wife. You need to go on like a two day off site kind of thing, just like you do. You go on quarterly off sites with your leadership team. Surely you can do Ah, you know, once a year off site with, you know,

with your with your partner. But go on the South side and plan the year and say, What? What blocks do you want for family stuff? And I essentially So we start with a blank calendar, and there's certain things that are in there, right, traffic diversion, some of our big event that's planned years out, so you know that one's taken. But in general, aside from one or two notable exceptions, she gets first dibs on the calendar. And if she says this is spring break. So I'm gonna claim this week and this is, you know,

for the kid's birthday here. I want to go on this and we want to go on this trip here so she gets to block out the calendar. Now we don't have to decide what we're doing yet. She disclaims it as hers. Really? She claims claims it is ours That's even in claiming it is hers. Isn't really, um, kind of a stupid way to put it. She cleans and redeems that time as our family time as renewal time for us as a family. So what that means is, if it really gets speaking, opportunity comes up. If you know there's an opportunity to travel for a business, development opportunity or partnership, I have to say no,

because that's hers. It's already been blocked out. Now, the practical application that as I say, I'm sorry. I can't make it. Then could we plan another time? You know what? About 90% of the time you can. So just that act of saying OK, you get first crack at this. What do you want? You know what we want. How many vacations do we want to go on this family? How long do you want to be? What types of vacation.

So we want them to be just that act right there has it gives me so much freedom, cause now outside of that, I can run my visits, and I don't have to have, you know, a lot of guilt. Now, if I'm gonna travel internationally, we have a rule. She gets to decide if if that's something that works and I'm gonna be gone for an extended period of time. We're gonna talk about that first, and it better be a good reason. My rule. If somebody wants me to come out and speak, it's a speaking fee plus two business class tickets s so that she could go with me. And so now you know,

I'm more willing to do it if it's a if it's a trip just for us, so we don't have family time, and then we won't have us time. But just getting her first dibs over the calendar. That's a biggie. Uh, you know, and I try, uh, I always My goal is I'm gonna be home for dinner are there times when it just doesn't work out of the times. And I'm late. Yeah, I want to make sure it's the exception, not the rule. And it's those times when it starts to become the rule and it's become habit that she'll look at and say again, Hey,

you could you could do it But you can't pretend like you're doing it for us because we just want you home for dinner. And that little phrase is something that she hasn't had the utter ah, lot of times. But she has pulled out of her back pocket a couple of times. But I've just found is from a tactical perspective, doing that to day off site, just us letting her have a look at the calendar, reevaluating it again over the summer to look at. So we're almost working on a rolling sort of annual basis. So in the summer we look at it for how does the rest of the year look? And then what is the first part of the next year? Look, uh, that's helped Descent one action has has changed everything.

Yeah, that's huge, because then it's all about expectations, right? Because there she's looking at the year, what does her expectations out of it, and you're looking at it the same way. So do you do that on like, a weekly basis? I know like you look at the week to like what's coming up this week, just kind of chatter on that

if it's a big week and a lot of things were going on, but you know the thing about school when you've got four kids and they're in school, it's kind of gets to be a routine, so we'll talk about stuff if I'm traveling right now, I've had I've had a season where I've traveled a lot in the last two weeks. I was in. I was in Mexico for a week and she was with me on that trip, and then I was back for a day, and then I had to immediately flight in Miami for a couple of days and I was back for a day, and the very next day I had to fly to London for a week and, you know, and now I'm back. That wasn't good, and I think that's the other things to say that was necessary. Like all of those things that happened, they kind of had to happen. It was unfortunate the timing worked out the way that they did,

but for the course of the business, it really needed to happen. But we said This isn't good. We called it. We said like, This is not a good thing. It's an exception. We're doing it. We're making this exception because it's important Each one of these trips is isn't important to commit. You know, it's a it's a really big opportunity or was a commitment that was done. But we're gonna say this isn't good and I think just that that's important. Also, to be on the same page of, you know, is this okay or is it not?

She's fine with me, You know, if I if I need to travel and same with the kids, like if I need to travel, everybody gets it. That's an aspect of my life. That's an aspect of you know, of my business in this season that you know that I'm in and different people are gonna have different things. My best friend growing up is an attorney. He never travels, but he works constantly. Different people are gonna have different things. I think that's I think that's a light. It's just Do you agree on the subjective parts? Do you both agree that that, Yeah,

you know what, me effectively being gone for like two and 1/2 weeks is too long, is too much. This is too much. That's that's bad. I think the fact that we can say that's bad and I'm not saying that other people may be listening saying like, I think that's fine My wife and I wouldn't have a problem with that grain. I'll tell you what's important that you agree. You know, if I'm saying you're thinking, what's the big deal, then Um and she's thinking this is awful. Then that's where we're in.

A good Not long, Yeah, no, that's that. It was all great advice because I think it's all about getting the same page. Um, is there anything else that you found maybe you picked up with with your other entrepreneur friends that are maybe a similar stage of life for a little bit further down the road that you could share? I mean, you mentioned that some of those piece of advice were from an older gentlemen who is kinda like a mentor of yours. Do you have any other, like, kind of nuggets like that that are that you can think of Ralph top of your head that you want to share?

Yeah. I mean, I had, um you know, friends tell me it's it's it's it's quantity time. You know, I don't think that just because basically, don't be that every other weekend Dad that swoops in and takes him to do the cool stuff and and say like I mean, it's one thing that that if you're in a no if you divorce him, it's all that you have from a custody perspective than that's what you have and you make the best of it. But that's not my situation. My my wife and I were happily married. You know, we I could see my kids whenever one he said, Don't be that that Dad that, you know, takes the girls you know,

takes your daughter's on date nights and you have all this you know amazingly great time. And then you're gonna take your boys on like he's really fun backpacking and camping trips. And like they have these phenomenal you know, experiences Yeah, it's it's okay to do that. But if you don't do that and also have the quantity time, then they're just going to see you as the fun Dad as the fun parent. And your wife's gonna be kind of positioned, as you know, the as the mean one. And it's just not fair. So we're very, very cognizant. I don't like having experiences separate from my wife, and I really don't like having a lot of experience is separate from my family right now. Again,

if if I've got a speaking engagement in Europe, I'm probably not gonna take all four kids out of school to go. But I would very much like to take my wife, and, um, we have no problem whatsoever. We tell our kids all the time. You know our relationship. The relation between my wife and I is the most important relationship in our lives. It will last longer than there's gonna come a time when our kids are going to leave in clean, they're gonna go off on their own. They're gonna hopefully, um, get married themselves to start their own families, begin their own traditions, and it's gonna be my wife and I.

So we have a weekly date night, and that's something that we've always maintained. And we do that even if I've been gone all week and I really miss the kids, that weekly Date night is more important. I'll see them the next day. Um, so I think making sure that just kind of lost it. I'd say Make sure that when you talk about family, understand that you've got as a parent, um, you having the other rule there, which is a husband or wife? Right? And you cannot neglect that rolled, either, because that will also hurt the kid's.

So make sure you have that regular date night, um, and then just make sure that you have the the quantities I'm and not just the quality time. Yeah, quality is great, but don't miss the stuff like I don't like. I don't like having to leave work sometimes to pick up my daughter from dance. It's very, very frustrating, but it's important that I do that, you know, Could my wife going to it? Yeah, it's important that I do it. It's important that I fly home earlier, catch a red eye so I can make it back for a soccer game or something like that.

Um, it's those kind of things are important. So don't just be the cool parent who takes the kids to do all the fun stuff. Make sure that you have that that quantity. Time to make sure that you got the quantity of time with your with your partner as well. Because I don't get that relationship falls apart, the family's gonna suffer no matter, no matter how cool the parent

you are. Yeah, it's a great way to end it. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, right? I

appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks much around me. And thanks so much for this. This project and everything that you're doing.

I think it's important. Thanks. You could find Ryan at digital marketer dot com. Um, and I think all of that up in the show notes Thank you so much for listening. If you found this episode with Ryan valuable, please just share it with another dad that could use maybe some of these tips or would also find valuable. This show exists to help fathers and give them tips and tricks on how to be intentional. Their role, and that's how we grow. The show is just by sharing, so please email it to a friend. Also go out to to send dad dot com the number to send dad dot com and sign up for email list. If you're not already on it, you'll get all the latest episodes. Thank you so much for listening, and you can always email me at Mike at two Cent dad dot com. Thank you.