Why Having Children Inevitably Ends in Heartache | James Currier (Dad of 4, NFX)

[00:00:00] James Currier: It's sort of inevitable that you're gonna end up with heartbreak. So, when you engage in parenting, understand that that's part of it. So, don't take it too seriously, particularly if they're not in the career you want or they don't have the right status college you want, or they don't, they didn't plan the traveling soccer team or whatever.
[00:00:14] James Currier: Like these things are, are small.
[00:00:15] Adam Fishman: Welcome to Startup Dad, the podcast where we dive deep into the lives of dads who are also leaders in the world of startups and business. I'm your host, Adam Fishman. In today's world, encouraging your kid to sail solo across the Atlantic at age 16 would be out of the question, but that's exactly what James Currier did with his son.
[00:00:40] Adam Fishman: James is a serial entrepreneur and general partner at NFX. A venture firm he started that now has over $1.6 billion under management. In addition to being a world class investor and entrepreneur, he's also a husband and the father of four boys. Today, we talked about how he fostered entrepreneurship and a healthy relationship with money in his kids, why he thinks danger is a good thing, and how he encouraged his kids to take wild adventures from a young age.
[00:01:12] Adam Fishman: The seven to one rule for positive reinforcement and feedback, and the four page single space document he wrote called Why Having Children Inevitably Ends In Heartache. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to Startup Dad on YouTube, Spotify or Apple. Welcome James Currier to start up. Dad, James, it is my absolute pleasure to have you here with me today.
[00:01:37] James Currier: Oh, thanks Adam. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:38] Adam Fishman: Alright. Your kids are all adults now, uh, if you, if we can call them that, between the ages of 19 and 22, and you've got four of them. and the first thing I'm curious about is has your relationship with them changed as they've gotten older, started to go off on their own and things like that?
[00:01:58] James Currier: not much. And I think the reason is because even when they were little, I would talk to them like grownups, I've always felt as if our, our little beings are pretty much adapted to the world already, even at an early age. And so if you talk to 'em like adults, they'll behave better and better.
[00:02:13] James Currier: They'll learn faster. And we've created a lot of environments where they end up talking to adults even when they were six or eight or whatever. And so they were pretty adult up. Even when they were younger. And so, no, it's, it continues to be hilarious. We continue to wrestle, we continue to laugh a lot and make each other laugh a lot and, and, uh, play.
[00:02:33] James Currier: you know, it hasn't changed much over the years.
[00:02:34] Adam Fishman: I love to hear that and we'll come back to some of those, tips about talking to kids about adults, uh, as adults a little bit later. you, sir, are a lifelong entrepreneur. You founded a bunch of companies. You now, are leading NFX, uh, and investing in in the future of, future entrepreneurs.
[00:02:52] Adam Fishman: can you talk to me a little bit about how you have fostered entrepreneurship in your own kids?
[00:02:59] James Currier: my dad was an entrepreneur and his dad was an entrepreneur. I think my grandfather invented the first baseball pitching machine, and so to a certain extent it might even be in our jeans. one thing we did was we said, if you come up with a business idea, I will pay you a dollar.
[00:03:13] James Currier: I. And so they're like, well, I'm gonna go collect pretty rocks and sell them door to door. I'm like, done. Here's a dollar. Go have at it. Someone was like, okay, I'm gonna blow up balloons and I'm gonna go, go put a stand out in front of our house on the street in Palo Alto and sell to people who go by.
[00:03:28] James Currier: Great. Done. So I wanted to reward them for the, for the trying, uh, number one. Number two. I told them, look, you're never gonna get an allowance because I'm not a source of capital for you. You have to go out into the world and find your own money. so that's another way you, you foster entrepreneurship.
[00:03:44] James Currier: 'cause if they ever want $4 to do something, they go buy candy. They're not gonna get it from you. So they have to go figure out how to make it. And then the third thing that, that we did was we said, you can't get a phone. Uh, you have to pay for half of your phone. when you're, 12, 13, 14, whatever it is, and you gotta go figure out how to earn that money.
[00:04:03] James Currier: And so that was a big impetus for them to do that. And so they started all coming up with ideas alone, and then they started coming up with ideas together and they started, you know, summer camps and they did all sorts of service projects and
[00:04:14] Adam Fishman: and it sounds like maybe you had a Shark Tank style conversations around the dinner table. Is that, is that something that was common in your household?
[00:04:22] James Currier: Yeah, we did. We, I would come home and I would, I would bring new business ideas that were coming into the firm and ask them if they thought it was a good idea or what the pros and cons were. And, they would learn to sort of diagnose different ideas. And you know what's so hilarious is that even when they knew nothing, they were, they knew tons.
[00:04:40] James Currier: logic of these things is pretty obvious even to children when they're eight, nine, or 10.
[00:04:44] Adam Fishman: so they could tell you like, oh, I would use that, or like, that sounds interesting.
[00:04:47] James Currier: Not, not even. They would be like, well, I think it would be hard to get those customers to actually repeat purchase, like they would say stuff, they would think that stuff through just naturally. and it wasn't something I had taught them. They just, they were just like that. I think most kids are probably like that if you give 'em a chance to listen to, to what they're saying.
[00:05:03] Adam Fishman: Yeah, they understood the tenets of retention at a very young, at a very young age, so I wish more adults understood that. More
[00:05:09] Adam Fishman: product builders.
[00:05:10] James Currier: Yeah. They understood pricing, they understood retention, they understood competition, they understood branding. They're like, I don't like that name. It's not gonna work. And it was good.
[00:05:19] Adam Fishman: tell me about neuro camp. Is that another thing? Is that something that one of them started?
[00:05:23] James Currier: Yeah. Uh, two of them got together and then all four of 'em ended up doing it. And that was a project to create a physics camp in the backyard. Uh, in our little garage in our backyard for kids. So they were all 11 to 13 and they were doing this for kids who were sort of eight to 10, and they were basically teaching, freshman physics to kids, uh, in the neighborhood and, and around.
[00:05:47] James Currier: And the parents would pay $288 a week for them to take them from like 8:00 AM to one.
[00:05:54] James Currier: and they would be in our backyard. So half of it was babysitting, but half of it was launching little rockets and doing little cars with, you know, propellers and that kind of thing, and dropping eggs off the roof, you know, and they would make tie-dye t-shirts and they had the neuro camp logo on the T-shirts.
[00:06:10] James Currier: And, it was great. All and all four of them worked together. And then they split up the money and, and they would do it for the first year. They did it for two weeks. The next year they did it for three weeks. And, they would get mailing lists of all the parents and send it out and the kids would just flood in and it got bigger and bigger every year.
[00:06:25] James Currier: And then eventually they, they got a little old and they started getting real internships with real companies and so they stopped doing it. But I have one friend whose, whose son is now getting to be 13 and he's gonna come by and get all the information about how to do it and, and maybe start doing it in Palo Alto.
[00:06:38] James Currier: So
[00:06:39] Adam Fishman: that's awesome. And they just ran it out of your, outta your backyard.
[00:06:42] James Currier: it was a real estate arb is what it really was.
[00:06:44] Adam Fishman: Airbnb for camps. I love that. I want to come back to the, um, the things you were talking about with not giving your kids an allowance, giving them a dollar per idea, and things like that. a lot of people would think about somebody like you and say, oh, you know, you've been really successful in your, in your career.
[00:07:04] Adam Fishman: It's pretty easy to raise spoiled, entitled kids. but do you think that that stuff that you did really helped them establish a healthy relationship with, with money and avoid that sense of entitlement?
[00:07:17] James Currier: Oh yeah. And we also, you know, use our language when we go shopping in the grocery store. We say, well, we're gonna get this 'cause it's cheaper and, we'll look at the prices with them. we'll talk about the rich people 'cause they'll go to their friend's houses and they'll have pools in Atherton and they're like, dad, they live completely differently than we do.
[00:07:35] James Currier: 'cause we chose to have a 2,700 square foot house in Palo Alto. And to keep it real, we have a Honda Odyssey and you know, we just take all of our money. We just keep investing it for the future. we don't spend it. Uh, we don't have fancy watches. we don't buy expensive things and we don't care for that stuff.
[00:07:51] James Currier: It's not what's interesting to us. we care about creation and making stuff. And so by, by living that way and, walking that walk every day, uh, with the house, we choose the neighborhood, we choose the, how we are with our neighbors. I think it, that also makes a big impact. And say, you know, those people are, are rich and we are working people.
[00:08:09] James Currier: I think it's important to, to, to always keep it that way, but also to, to then when we're giving money away to the Boys and Girls Club or to, you know, various charities. We've got 17 different charities we give to. we include them in that so that they see that, you know, it's, it's something that you work so that you can create.
[00:08:27] James Currier: And that's the main reason. And then one of the benefits of, of creating is that you get money and then that money can be given to people who need it more, who weren't as lucky as we are. So bringing them into that processing and, you know, my, my wife's family always did that generations back in New England.
[00:08:43] James Currier: And so that's part of the culture of how we, we think about things.
[00:08:47] Adam Fishman: I love that. So, you know, you've created this really good, healthy relationship with your now adult kids around money and how they think about,and this idea of creating, uh, but another thing you told me is that you don't take too much credit. Or responsibility for parenting that genetics is most of a kid's destiny.
[00:09:06] Adam Fishman: What does that mean and what does that mean for you and how you approach parenting?
[00:09:11] James Currier: It has been my experience that the whole debate about nature nurture is a little overblown. scientific evidence and pinker and all these sort, you know, it's pretty clear that it's mostly nature. And we have four kids within 37 months of each other. They're all the same gender. We have very stable family, very loving marriage.
[00:09:30] James Currier: So it was a pretty good experiment to see how much is nature and how much is nurture, and they're wildly different kids. from a DD to learning disabilities, to height to whatever. and it's all genetics. and they were like that since they were little. And their tendencies were similar when they were three is when they're 20.
[00:09:50] James Currier: So what that releases you from as a parent is to realize that the only choice that mattered was the choice of spouse. And then the genetic lottery you play between the two of you is pretty random. Even if you have a very controlled experiment like we did with a pretty large number of, of kids, it's genetics.
[00:10:07] James Currier: And so that means that when they succeed really well, you can't get too egotistic about about it. And when they fail, you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. you should just focus on loving your wife, focus on loving them, and the rest of it's gonna take care of itself. we would show them baby Einstein things.
[00:10:22] James Currier: We did all the things that, you know, over, over parenting parents did. And none of that made any difference because if somebody was behind in reading, suddenly when they were 12, they would just read for four months and you know, they'd be able to quote Chos her and off they'd go because it was just genetically inevitable that they would do that.
[00:10:38] James Currier: It wasn't that we didn't give them baby Einstein or that we did, it had, it had no impact. So I think we should just relax a little bit.
[00:10:43] Adam Fishman: I love, I love that. You know, I, I meet a lot of parents, uh, who subscribe to the same philosophy, and then I meet others who, you know, they get really wrapped up. You mentioned that kind of ego, status. They, they get really wrapped up in, I. What are their kids doing, the success of their kids? It sort of almost feels like a reflection of them, and if their kid chooses to do something differently in life than maybe what they had hoped or wanted, they feel like they've failed as a, as a parent.
[00:11:11] Adam Fishman: And I think your advice here is saying like, that's not the case at all. Like, you haven't failed as long as you've loved your kids and your and your wife, you, you're doing the job.
[00:11:21] James Currier: I wrote a four page single space, uh, document years ago called Why Having Children Inevitably Ends in Heartbreak. I just started listing out all the ways in which you can have heartbreak with children from still having stillborn and not being able to have kids all the way to, you know, a 12-year-old cracking his head, skateboarding and dying to, you know, all of your kids growing up healthy and getting married and.
[00:11:45] James Currier: But the husbands and the wives don't get along, so you never get to see them all together. I mean, it's sort of inevitable that you're gonna end up with heartbreak. So, when you engage in parenting, understand that that's part of it. So, don't take it too seriously, particularly if they're not in the career you want or they don't have the right status college you want, or they don't, they didn't plan the traveling soccer team or whatever.
[00:12:04] James Currier: Like these things are, are small. it's hard to remember that when you are a status, seeking high achieving person like we have around in this area.
[00:12:11] Adam Fishman: Yeah. when did you write that list and what was the inspiration behind doing it?
[00:12:17] James Currier: I think when the kids, the oldest kids were six or seven, it just poured outta me. I, and honestly, I went back and tried to look for it and I couldn't find it. on any of my hard drives from any of my computers. So it might be lost to time, but it wouldn't be that hard to replicate. I'm sure any, any of your listeners could do it if they just spent a half an hour typing.
[00:12:34] James Currier: I saw so many parents unhappy. I saw, kids not having friends. I saw kids not getting into the private schools they wanted. I saw, Everyone was, you know, making a big deal out of everything. And I just realized, oh wow. You know, that's part of it. That's heart's part of it.
[00:12:49] Adam Fishman: Did you share that with anybody, or no? Obviously you didn't publish it on the internet.
[00:12:54] James Currier: Imagine how you'd be vilified.
[00:12:55] Adam Fishman: true.
[00:12:56] Adam Fishman: so you mentioned a few of the things on the list, but like, what were some of the other things on that list?
[00:13:00] James Currier: they get married and then they get divorced or they, uh, have kids and then their grandkids die or. they don't have all their fingers and toes when they're born or, they have heart troubles and, and so they can't ever replace sports. or they're autistic and they don't really end up having any friends, or, I mean, just goes on and on.
[00:13:18] James Currier: you just have a horrible relationship with them because they're super rebellious in their teenage years. And then you say a few things to them and they say some things back, and the, the relationship never recovers, uh, during those hormonal phases or. the kids hate each other,
[00:13:31] James Currier: you know, I heard a family where this, uh, Vietnamese immigrant guy worked his butt off and bought all this property up in Sonoma, and then he died and his four kids ended up just hating each other and fighting over the land, destroyed the family that they had all this wealth. there's so many things that can go wrong and, and, and the, the solution seems to be just, you know, inner work, doing the work on yourself and.
[00:13:53] James Currier: And marrying someone who's willing to do that work as well.
[00:13:56] Adam Fishman: in writing out that list, did that help you have a better or different appreciation for what you had in your, in your
[00:14:04] James Currier: Oh yeah, because every, everything that I didn't get, I was like, Hey, this.
[00:14:12] Adam Fishman: you've mentioned a couple of times now your relationship with your wife, obviously that, that sounds like building that relationship and maintaining that has been something that you focused on. I think you probably go so far as to say that that's the job, that's the number one job.
[00:14:26] Adam Fishman: when did you realize that that was your job as a partner or parent? and then what are some ways that you worked on that relationship over the years?
[00:14:36] James Currier: I realized that was the main job as a parent when I had my parents get divorced when I was five, when you have parents who are fighting or who are unstable, everything else feels unstable, the world feels unsafe. you have to keep moving Schools, everything becomes uncertain. Uh, your relationship to money changes your relationship to your, you know, siblings.
[00:14:56] James Currier: Change your relationship to your neighbors, change everything, everything. Is a function of that primal marriage parenting relationship in a world where we have atomized families and we're not collectively, you know, living in a cave and, you know, raising children as a, as a group. and so I realized that as a child, that that's the main job I.
[00:15:15] James Currier: And so started working on that and working on myself prior to getting married, and certainly wouldn't have evolved fast enough as a human to get married in, in good time if I hadn't done all that work. And then after we got married, my wife and I continued to. Go to the landmark form and go to the Hoffman Institute and go to Joe Hudson's retreats and you know, take whatever course at Essen there was, or read whatever book when we're going to bed about self-improvement or the seven habits for highly successful families about, you know, all the different writers who, who write so many great things that remind you, oh, that's, that's actually a better way to think about it.
[00:15:48] James Currier: Or better way to live, or better way to speak to each other. and I just think that takes a lot of work in order to do that. Well. and I think that that mostly plays out in your marriage relationship. And then the two of you can work on that together in terms of your parenting relationships but that commitment to constantly improving your own interpersonal relationships with people, I think is sort of the critical thing.
[00:16:06] James Currier: And when I tell my boys is, look, all I'm looking for in your spouses is, you know, she or he makes you the best you that you can be, the best of you. And number two, that they're willing to to work. On themselves interpersonally, that they see it, that they value it, and that they're willing to put the time in that.
[00:16:22] James Currier: Because if you have that, anything is possible. And if you don't have that, almost nothing is possible.
[00:16:27] Adam Fishman: Was that something that you and your wife kind of got on the same page about, like early on or even maybe before you got married?
[00:16:34] James Currier: Yeah. Well before we got married,
[00:16:35] James Currier:
[00:16:35] Adam Fishman: Great. okay, so you just mentioned your, your boys. and I want to go back, uh, in time to your first kid, and something that you said to me about parenting, which is.
[00:16:46] Adam Fishman: You don't have to be in love with your kids at the beginning. what'd you mean by that?
[00:16:52] James Currier: I. You know, grew up in the, you know, eighties and nineties. And so I thought I wanted to be this super loving dad and, fatherhood and, you know, the feminization of fatherhood rather than the sort of, you know, Viking father, we grew up in an age where men were encouraged to be more feminine and, and that's great.
[00:17:08] James Currier: But what I found in the third month of sitting up at two in the morning feeding this little screaming thing, the milk, I realized I hate this, this sucks. I. And I gave myself permission to, to say that and admit that, that this blows it's keeping me from my work. It's keeping me from being awake during the day.
[00:17:27] James Currier: this isn't fun. I don't love this thing. Uh, it's a pain in my ass. and then I relaxed. And then it was much easier to, to just take care of it, and have it grow and sort of go through the waiting period for it to become sentient. And, and then it starts to become fun like with boys maybe.
[00:17:42] James Currier: Four, maybe girls are fun at three, but for me it wasn't really fun until that period. And, and for many dads, they're like, no, no man. I'm so in love with my baby. I'm like, great. I'm not saying you can't have that experience, I'm just saying don't force that on me.
[00:17:58] James Currier: I didn't have that experience. I had the experience where I wasn't in love with them until they hit about four and they could talk pretty well and we could do stuff and, and at that point I was really in love with them.
[00:18:07] James Currier: they don't remember anything before six anyway, so
[00:18:09] Adam Fishman: that's
[00:18:10] James Currier: you, all they know is do mom and dad love each other? That's the only thing they're kind of sensing Am I being taken care of? Am I getting my needs taken care of? And if you're doing those two things, they're gonna be fine. And then you don't need to force yourself to be like, oh, I'm so dreamy in love with my child.
[00:18:24] James Currier: I'm such a good father. Can't you see I'm a great father, aren't I being the type of father that our society's defined as the good Father? you can be yourself.
[00:18:33] Adam Fishman: Yeah, and I mean, I don't know anyone that honestly could say that they love getting up at 2:00 AM and doing a, a feeding with a kid screaming in your face. It's not a pleasant, it's not a pleasant experience. So, but a necessary one.
[00:18:47] James Currier: or when there're two like. This isn't the right size spoon. You put too much milk in my Cheerios. Like there's always something. They're always screaming, they're always crying. When you had four of them within three, seven months, someone was always crying.
[00:18:57] James Currier: but as soon as one of them stopped crying, then the others would realize, oh, it's my turn. And they, you know, so it, for seven years it was relentless.
[00:19:04] Adam Fishman: you know, it sounds like that exercise or that discovery of say, of just sort of, of allowing yourself to admit, hey. This sucks. This is not a great experience. It was kind of like freeing for you, allowed you to have maybe more authentic relationship.
[00:19:23] Adam Fishman: And then you can talk about, like, you can kind of commiserate, Hey, this does suck. I mean, your, oldest son at the time is not gonna respond to that, but your wife can probably like, yeah, that sucks. It does suck. It's not fun.
[00:19:35] Adam Fishman: you can admit to yourself how you're feeling. You're not in denial of what you're really experiencing 'cause you're trying to force yourself into some societal mold.
[00:19:43] Adam Fishman: so you have a, an interesting opinion on the way that you should approach your kids once they turn 12. 12, we're gonna focus on this 12-year-old period. It's really relevant to me because I in fact, have a 12-year-old, uh, currently. and that this involves time in the wild learning something new and one-on-one adventures.
[00:20:04] Adam Fishman: So I wanted to walk through each of those and get your take on them. So I wanna start with time in the wild. So tell me about time in the wild when you turned 12.
[00:20:14] James Currier: I honestly feel that you, you should be having time in the wild as soon as you can. basically danger seeking.
[00:20:20] James Currier: I think that our society has gone so far to say, I. You know, the only acceptable risk is zero risk. And I think that's a huge mistake and it's very hard to fight against it. There's always some hysterical parent saying, but how can you leave the danger to the children?
[00:20:39] James Currier: My God, the, the morality, you know, the sort of certitude of their moral position is unquestioned, Those most fearful 5% of our population, 10% are yelling to the congressman to make laws about child seats and blah, blah, blah. And it's just, it just further, further ruins our society and ruins the experience of being a child.
[00:20:58] James Currier: and they don't know that they're doing it. They don't know that, that it's actually bad 'cause they think it's highly moral. So. We've gotten to a point, whether they're five or whether they're 12 or 18, where you know you're not supposed to be taking any risks. So I have been danger seeking for, from the beginning with the kids, and I think it just accelerates when they hit sort of 11 or 12 when they're.
[00:21:20] James Currier: strong enough to do stuff, when they were six or eight, I would say, yeah, there's an 80 foot, you know, redwood tree, climb up it, you know, and they'd climb up to 65 feet and they'd be up there and their mom would freak out and I'd be like, this is fantastic.
[00:21:32] James Currier: What's he gonna do? He is gonna bounce down between the branches at, and I'll catch him at the bottom and I'll have a broken arm and he be fine. but it never happens. Of course. He's fine. He's, appropriately sensing the danger and so he holds onto each branch and he goes up and he comes down.
[00:21:43] James Currier: He's great, and then he feels like a king, you know, he feels all confident, like he can go out and start a company or he can go dive off the diving board or whatever. So it's compounding the danger seeking compounds because they learn that like I did as a kid, that you can do it.
[00:21:57] James Currier: I just continue that when they're 12 and, and, and when they get to be 12, it's more, you talked about, you know, how do you keep them from being spoiled?
[00:22:04] James Currier: One of the things we did in our family was every Christmas we read 300,
[00:22:08] James Currier: which is that comic book that preceded the, the movie. And in it it talks about, every child in Sparta is sent out for their time in the wild. they have to survive for like six or eight weeks by themselves, uh, at age 12.
[00:22:24] James Currier: And the boys love this story. I would read it every Christmas, you know, the Christmas telling of 300, you know, and they all gather around the couch and Dad opens the book and I cry in the same two places where he talks about freedom and democracy and all that stuff, the rule of law, you know? And he is like, oh, here comes daddy, he's gonna cry again.
[00:22:40] James Currier: And then they look down and there I, I'm crying, I'm tearing up for the rule of law. I love the rule of law. and it's become a part of our family and. And I think that they relate to the time in the wild, uh, because of, of that book, where he has to face down the wolf. and then eventually it led to all sorts of great stuff that the kids did in their teens, like sail solo across the Atlantic.
[00:23:00] James Currier: my 16-year-old was the youngest to ever do that from west to east. And, uh, another one went to the Everest base camp and, you know, various other sorts of things. So, that's that what you were asking about.
[00:23:10] Adam Fishman: you just mentioned your son was 16 and he sailed across the Atlantic, I think, what went Massachusetts to Portugal or, or something like that? Yeah. I read some of those articles about it. I watched some of the video clips from, from back in the day.
[00:23:24] Adam Fishman: You shared a few of those with me. What was the, inspiration behind? Him doing it and you know, was there ever a point as a parent, you and your wife were worried about what would happen there?
[00:23:37] James Currier: yeah, yeah. We were certainly worried. the inspiration was. He was a sophomore and we were in the car with his older brother and I was just like, guys, we need some more great adventures. 'cause I had just taken them to Burning Man.
[00:23:49] James Currier: I had taken those particular two boys of the four to Burning Man. the other two were gonna come, but then they bailed out at the last second.
[00:23:56] James Currier: but we had an amazing time at Burning Man. We went for five days of the build and stayed for one day of the party. And they were super bored with the party and they just wanted to go back to camp and build some more stuff, when they were 13 and 15 and. And so they, they learned that there's this giant world out there with all sorts of magic and all sorts of adventure, uh, and things you can't believe.
[00:24:15] James Currier: You know, that you're working 14 hours a day with masks on 'cause of the dust and the heat, and you're sleeping during the day. So you can work all night in the cool. And, you know, wearing bandanas and bouncing on huge trampolines and climbing on huge pieces of art. And, you know, people howling at the sun as its sunsets, like all the stuff.
[00:24:33] James Currier: That happens at Burning Man that just when you're 13 and 15 just blows your mind. And so they knew that there was like a big world out there. So we were sitting in the car saying, what's a great adventure we could do? And we came up with 10 ideas, ride our bike across the United States, hike the Pacific Coast Trail sail across the Atlantic,
[00:24:47] James Currier: And so two weeks later, Cal, the youngest came to me and he said, dad, what would it take to cross the Atlantic? And without turning around, it was sort of 10 o'clock at night. I just said, well, you you start, the way you start every project. You create a spreadsheet. So we created a spreadsheet and we started just making all these tabs and adding things.
[00:25:03] James Currier: I'm like, oh, what kind of a boat could we buy? And, you know, within a half an hour we had 12 boats that we had cut the URL and put it into the spreadsheet. And so now it was rolling and then it, the ne next night it came back and asked me more questions and we kept building the spreadsheet.
[00:25:15] James Currier: that was in January. And then we bought the boat February 4th for $12,000 in Connecticut. Uh, we flew out there and checked out six boats and bought one. normally a boat to cross the Atlantic is three or $400,000. And this was like 12 grand. It was 1976 boat. We bought it from a 91-year-old guy, a wonderful guy.
[00:25:34] James Currier: and he started taking sailing lessons in March and then he sailed in June and he completed in July. and we stored the boat in Portugal. The next year we went back and he and I and the, the other brother. The three of us were in the boat when we were attacked by orcas, and the orcas destroyed the boat and we had to sell it for 500 euros to the local fishermen or whatever.
[00:25:52] James Currier: So we had lots of great adventures on that boat, including that one. And yeah, we sure we were worried. I was, I was watching his Garmin, you know, we had one of these little Garmin inReach things, which would ping the satellite every 10 minutes so I could watch his track across the Atlantic and I would, I was checking it, you know, eight, 12 times a day to see where he was.
[00:26:09] James Currier: And, uh, it was very hard to work and my wife was more upset than I was, uh, about the whole thing. And it was a real strain on the marriage, what I kept trying to explain to everyone is people don't understand the risks. Everyone's got a different risk spreadsheet in their head, and if you don't understand the actual risks, then you're gonna think it's more dangerous than it is.
[00:26:30] James Currier: And, but I understood the risks and we had spreadsheeted it out and Cal and I. Felt comfortable with our calculations about where the risks were and where to have redundancies and what matter and what didn't, and we ended up being right.
[00:26:45] Adam Fishman: and then the next time you all got together, the boat got destroyed by orcas. So thankfully you made it across, in a month on the solo trip. And then, um. on the Orca adventure. It was you and two of your sons. that's wild. And I guess they just didn't want you on that water, apparently.
[00:27:01] Adam Fishman: Those, those whales. So, it was really interesting. you know, he was alone on the ocean for like a month. you sleep very intermittently. Like I watched this whole interview with him and one of the things that I found really. Striking was, you know, at 16, like how much he kind of learned about himself on that journey.
[00:27:20] Adam Fishman: And he said his biggest takeaway was he didn't like being alone. Like he's a social person 'cause I think the, one of the reporters said, well, would you do it again? And he was like, no, not really. You know, I like being around people. And that was kind of a bummer. and he just said it so nonchalantly.
[00:27:36] Adam Fishman: It was, it's just a very profound thing to hear a
[00:27:39] Adam Fishman: 16-year-old
[00:27:39] James Currier: but the most important, the most profound things come out during your time in the wild. And then they're embedded in you and you take those for the next 80 years. and the sooner you learn those things, the better. And I think that we coddle our children and we, we put them in the model UN and we put them in robotics because that's the track and that's gonna look good on the college apps.
[00:27:57] James Currier: And in the meantime, there's all this wildness out there that the kids are missing out on, and they're gonna come out, Not growing up as fast or maybe not realizing the most important things is fast and inevitably their genetics will take over. So it might not matter, but
[00:28:09] James Currier: to the, to the extent that life is to be adventured, the more adventure the better.
[00:28:13] James Currier: And so start earlier.
[00:28:14] Adam Fishman: Okay. another one of the things that you talked to me about is, making sure that you are learning something new with your kids when they start to hit that, you know, age, that sort of like 12 to 14 age range. this is not the first time. This has come up. why was it important for you to try to learn something new alongside them?
[00:28:38] James Currier: this idea, once you see it is super obvious, but it was actually pointed out to me and pretty much everybody else by the great Todd Francis,
[00:28:45] Adam Fishman: Yes. I was gonna say he brought this up on the pod a while
[00:28:48] James Currier: This was his big insight, which was as they get to be, uh, teenagers and the hormones kick in for them to soil the nest so they can get out, one of the great ways to keep them from soiling too much and to keep that relationship strong through those more difficult years is to engage in something you know nothing about so that they can learn next to you and.
[00:29:08] James Currier: Be superior to you and teach you. And so the, you know, two things that, that I was doing, I was painting with one boy and I was learning to kiteboard with two other boys. And, uh, I tried to learn guitar with another one, but I was so bad at it that I'd had to abandon. Uh, and he was great at it. So,
[00:29:24] James Currier: those were purposeful things that Todd pointed out the idea, and then I picked the things that made sense to me and, and those were great because very quickly they get better than you add everything you're learning.
[00:29:34] Adam Fishman: yeah, that's, that's fascinating. So painting kiteboarding and an attempt at the guitar. So now does that one still play guitar?
[00:29:42] James Currier: Oh yeah. He's playing in a band. He's, he just bought himself a beautiful, he got his first job outta college and he is bought himself a beautiful guitar. It's, yeah.
[00:29:49] Adam Fishman: very nice. the last thing I wanted to ask you about this, sort of hitting 12 or maybe even a little bit older is, you have four kids. How do you prioritize individual time with them? And they're all, you know, you said 36, 37 months apart, so there's probably a lot of demands on your time from, for your four boys.
[00:30:11] Adam Fishman: So what did you do to make sure that you were, you know, navigating one-on-one time with, with them?
[00:30:18] James Currier: it was funny, it was intermittent stuff. Uh, we would do it and then we would end up stopping it, just out of, you know, busyness. But, you know, we would have like Sunday breakfasts that we would go one-on-one. We had an eight. great state trip. So when you turned eight, you could choose a state and mom or dad would go with you on a one-on-one to that state.
[00:30:37] James Currier: we always did, you know, sailing in the summertimes on a little sunfish. So two people can go out and, and if another brother wants to stop on, that's fine too. And, uh, we did a lot of beach time. Uh, 'cause we live in Palo Alto, so it was 40 minutes up at the 92. and then we just, al always had building projects.
[00:30:53] James Currier: So somebody would be doing a sewing project or someone would be building a,surfboard or somebody would be building a, tree house or somebody be building a one kid. And I built a, uh, 20 foot tall triche, uh, and launched basketballs across the street into the neighbor's yards and stuff. last night I was building a, uh, a die table with a 19-year-old who's playing it for a drinking game. And, you know, so we're painting it and, you know, stenciling out the words that he wanted to say on it. And you're just out there under the lights in the workshop, in the backyard, and you're just talking, listening to Pink Floyd. You're telling him you're back in my day stories about, you know, you're, when you saw Pink Floyd in 1990 at Gillette Stadium, blah, blah.
[00:31:32] James Currier: It's that kind of a thing. It's just projects, I think like that bring you together or, we do cooking, like a lot of baking. So those things put you in touch with each other. Uh, I think, and it's part of the. The house.
[00:31:44] Adam Fishman: Yeah. On, on the topic of building, there's sort of two things I want to ask you about. One is, and you just kinda mentioned this, you have a workshop in your, your backyard. So you, got or built a workshop, to foster this idea of building stuff with your, with your kids. it sounds like you built a bunch of, I mean, you mentioned the tribu, but.
[00:32:02] Adam Fishman: I think you also said, you know, tree houses and signs and surfboards and a drinking table, and things like that. So, who came up with the ideas of like, here's the things we wanna build. Was that all your, your kids? I.
[00:32:14] James Currier: it's a collaborative thing. It's large. It's largely the kids who come up with it. Like the first week of, COVID, when we were stuck together, somebody said, let's build a ping pong table. So we went to Home Depot and got all the stuff, and we still have the ping pong table in the, in the main house.
[00:32:27] James Currier: it's just one thing after another. Uh, once you have the tools and they know it can be done 'cause they've seen you do it, they're like, well, what else could I do?
[00:32:34] Adam Fishman:
[00:32:34] James Currier: And then we also have a thing where we have, um, brotherly gifts during Christmas. So each brother picks a name out of a hat and then makes a gift for the other brother.
[00:32:44] James Currier: And, you know, it's usually done in the last 48 hours, so it's a, a
[00:32:47] James Currier: rush, but, but that also showed them that they can build stuff and make stuff. you know, so in fact building of the work, she was itself a project. 'cause you had to hang a waterproof thing from the trees above and then get the lights down on it and get the wiring and you know, get all the tools, which tools and where do they sit And yeah,
[00:33:07] Adam Fishman: Awesome. tell me about building secret layers in your house.
[00:33:11] James Currier: So we renovated our house when the kids were two to five, while we were in the process of that, it occurred to us that. We could build in places for little people to go. So in the eaves of the second floor, there could be a, like a secret layer, uh, where they could sleep. They could put in one bed and they could sleep in there.
[00:33:31] James Currier: And it could be like going on safari, in a little adventure or, uh, make sure that that is then connected to other places. So you'd actually ask the builders to knock holes, small holes, low holes in between closets and other places so that they as little people can do sneaky things. And we also asked that the builders put in a, a, a track downstairs basically so that there was a track where you would run around a wall so that there could be some chasing going on. And, and we found that that could be quite effective. And then we got a dog, and then you chase the dog, the dog chases you.
[00:34:05] James Currier: so the secret layers were, were basically making the house into a tree house, making the house into a place of, magic and fun.
[00:34:13] Adam Fishman: I love that. Now you make me wanna renovate my house and put some secret
[00:34:16] James Currier: Well, you don't have to renovate it. You just literally knock holes in the walls and.
[00:34:20] Adam Fishman: Well, that's easy then. Love that. okay. I want to talk about a few frameworks that you have. the first one that you told me about is focus on who they hang out with. Tell me about that one.
[00:34:35] James Currier: we learned this too late, so I hope your listeners can benefit from this. We always thought, like most people do that, oh, I need, I need them to find the things they're best
[00:34:45] James Currier: at. And the reason you want them to do that is so they can get into college so you can look good and have high status.
[00:34:50] James Currier: The next level of thinking is I want them to find some skills that they can develop that's a little better, but still you're, you're taking them to diving classes, you're taking them to, you know, cello classes. You're taking 'em to horse riding. You're trying to find the thing that like lights them up, which is great, and that's as far as we got.
[00:35:07] James Currier: But as they got into their teens realized, oh no, no, no, no. We should have been thinking. What kids are they hanging out with? Let's find a kid for them to go and do a play date with and do anything because if that kid ends up being passionate about welding or if that kid ends up being passionate about horses or sailing or theater or whatever, your kid is gonna be passionate about it too.
[00:35:32] James Currier: 'cause they're gonna see that passion through the eyes of this person that they wanna be with. And so it's another way of, of opening up the world to them is. Spending a little bit more time thinking about who they're hanging out with, rather than what they're doing, rather than another coach, another activity, another skill, it was just a big mental shift for me because in the end, we saw a lot of our kids' interests came from their friends' interests
[00:35:57] Adam Fishman: I have, uh, seen that as well. my kids tend to be more interested in the things that their friends are interested in, which is, which is good. okay. Second framework is don't just reprimand them. This, this one also actually applies to work too. I, I found, talk to me a little bit about the kind of ratio of good to bad feedback and, and things like that.
[00:36:18] Adam Fishman: So tell me about this idea of not, you know, just reprimanding your kids.
[00:36:22] James Currier: a woman taught us this up in Mill Valley when we lived there briefly. She had a parenting seminar and this was the big takeaway. And then I think there was a book that my wife brought back to the house, which talked about this because when we had our first kids, we thought, well, the kids are gonna be good and when they do something wrong, we correct them.
[00:36:39] James Currier: And that's how they learn how to continue to do good and not do the bad. But in fact, it's not the case. I think that kids will just do whatever and. It's up to you to help them figure out what is more beneficial to them and to you than, than not. So all I would do is reprimand the kids until they were about three and the babies were one.
[00:37:01] James Currier: And that's when we realized, oh, no, no, no. You have to notice the things that they're doing that you like. And say, oh, I really like it when you do that. Or, you know, it's so nice when you sit quietly in my lap and I get to read this book to you. Like even point that out. and now when I drive the car, the boys all say, thanks for driving dad at the end of every ride.
[00:37:24] James Currier: Because instead of just assuming that dad's gonna do the good thing or the right thing, or the thing that helps the family say, oh, you just helped the family out by driving us here and paying attention while we were talking or listening to music. Thank you for doing that. And so you start to actually positively reinforce the behaviors you want.
[00:37:39] James Currier: Not by telling them good job or anything, but just like, thank you for doing that. Or, oh, I appreciate you did that, or I noticed how you did that. Uh, I noticed how you gave your brother that toy. That was, that was really nice to see, you know, in specific. And if you do that seven times, then one time you can say, Hey.
[00:37:56] James Currier: You know, when you took that toy away from your brother, that's not really gonna make him happy. And in the long run, it's not gonna make you happy either, is it? Do you see how that works? and then you can get into the more negative behaviors and, and try to steer them away from those again, with specifics.
[00:38:10] James Currier: but if you don't compliment them seven times, the one time you, you go at them, they're just gonna be like, oh, this guy's always just correcting me. their listening will, will tune off.
[00:38:18] James Currier: and as they get into teenage years, I think it's harder for parents not to just be nagging because they see so many behaviors as they approach adulthood.
[00:38:26] James Currier: The parents can see so many, behaviors that they don't like, and the kids just tune out because the parents just nag all the time, and they, they lose that seven to one ratio and, and then it goes badly.
[00:38:35] Adam Fishman: yeah. It's kinda like, uh, professionally too, you know, the customer support. People only ever hear the bad stuff. They never hear someone say, oh. That was great. I love that. Thank you. it just get the negative. and that makes a ton of sense. you have to really hunt to find those seven good things and be specific about them, which, uh, which I like.
[00:38:53] James Currier: You don't have to hunt. You just have to develop your gratitude,
[00:38:56] James Currier: and I think that's good for you as a parent as well.
[00:38:58] Adam Fishman: that's good. you mentioned at the very beginning of, uh, this recording, a couple of things about talking to your kids, like adults from a, a young age and then encouraging them to talk to adults in groups. you know, I interact with a lot of my kids', friends it seems like we've lost a little bit of an art there of kids talking to grownups.
[00:39:21] Adam Fishman: You know, I used to talk to my friends' parents all the time, uh, about whatever, you know. so tell me about how you decided to talk to your kids, like adults from the, from the get go and then. what was the genesis behind encouraging them to talk to other adults in, in, you know, group settings?
[00:39:41] James Currier: I had seen other parents talk to children with baby language or talk down to them, and then the reaction of those kids to that type of status relationship. And I just didn't, and I didn't like it. Uh, I also had the experience of being drunk in college and even though I was drunk and sort of laying there inert, people would come and talk to me and I could hear them, and I kind of felt like being a kid might be like that, where I.
[00:40:04] James Currier: You're still in there, but it doesn't look like you're in there. And so it seemed to me like a fully formed human is probably in that little body. And so I'll just talk to it and, you know, see where we go. and it turned out to be right. I think they are in there and they do appreciate it.
[00:40:18] James Currier: 'cause they see how I talk to my wife, so why wouldn't I talk to them the same way?
[00:40:22] James Currier: so it just, it seemed like the right thing to do. And I think they appreciated it. that's it. That's where it came from.
[00:40:28] Adam Fishman: Yeah. And what about the idea of GE encouraging them to talk to other adults in groups and when they're really young?
[00:40:34] James Currier: So, We have an extended family, uh, back east and we're with them in big groups of 60, 80 over 4th of July and various times. and so I always wanted the kids not to just always play with the kids, but to be able to. Tell the grownups, 'cause you know, the grandparents, they wanna be entertained by the grandkids.
[00:40:51] James Currier: Like, they like me, but they really like the grandkids. So I had to teach my kids to spend more time with grandparents, talking with them, and then with aunts and uncles as well. so all that sort of training, uh, helped them to talk to adults. But then we also had sort of a spiritual group. We'd get together every, every month.
[00:41:07] James Currier: for about three and a half years. And we would actually sit in a circle for an hour and talk about a subject like gratitude or, forgiveness or whatever. And we would have the kids and the grownups sit in the same circle. Not the kids outside. And then we would split up, 'cause the kids would get a little antsy after an hour, and then they would go do a kid's thing, but for an hour they would be encouraged to give their thoughts about forgiveness and their thoughts about,
[00:41:31] James Currier: The subject was on the day and they noticed that they could speak like adults and the adults would listen to them and would be quiet and follow up on what they said. Well, you know What little Todd said there is actually really important, and I found that in my life. And they're like, yeah, I said that.
[00:41:45] James Currier: And if you do that 10 or 12 times or a hundred, you know, 20 times, they very quickly get acclimated
[00:41:51] Adam Fishman: and I imagine your kids now as adults, you know, no problem. In a job interview or whatever, just having, just talking to somebody like a, like a peer, which is great.
[00:42:03] Adam Fishman: this isn't really a framework per se, but you did mention getting a dog and that being important, even though they're kind of a pain in the, in the butt.
[00:42:12] Adam Fishman: so why was getting a dog in your family so important?
[00:42:16] James Currier: It is a little bit like getting a COO in your startup,
[00:42:19] Adam Fishman: I love that.
[00:42:22] James Currier: it sort of allows everyone to talk to the COO and not to have to talk to each other and piss each other off. the love energy can go into the dog and bring people back to that soft and cuddly, deeply related moment rather than just focusing on the people.
[00:42:37] James Currier: You know, it's a little bit like having children with adults.
[00:42:40] James Currier: If you just have adults in the room, everything gets really tense really quick. But if you have kids and adults, it's always much better.
[00:42:46] James Currier: my stepbrother says he lives in Thailand. He says, children are like the fire. In the old days, we would sit around staring at the fire. Now we sit around staring at the kids.
[00:42:55] James Currier: 'cause if we don't have kids or fire, we're just gonna look at each other. And then all this stuff happens and it just gets all tense. And so a dog is like that. It it's a router of emotion and, brings everything down. And it gives you so much fun to play with the animal and see how it interacts differently with different kids and.
[00:43:11] Adam Fishman: Oh, I love that. I love the dog being the co and the startup really, really got me too. okay. Just a couple more for you before lightning round. You know, you've obviously built a, a long career in technology, and I'm very curious how you treated technology in your house as the kids were, were growing up.
[00:43:31] Adam Fishman: There's been a lot of recent research on the role of technology and phones and things like that, and your kids maybe predated that at a touch or came up right in it. And so I'm just curious how you thought about and talked about technology, in your household.
[00:43:48] James Currier: I feel as if my kids at age 19 to 22, they were the real Guinea pigs for this. Experiment that our society is doing. And I think they took the brunt of it. we tried to be thoughtful about it, but I don't think we did a great job. We tried to put on the Disney blocker where you couldn't see the porn sites or whatever, and they would always figure out a way around it.
[00:44:11] James Currier: And, I think they were exposed to all sorts of crap when they were 11 that we didn't even know until they were 14, that they had seen stuff. and so I think it's challenging. And in terms of getting them a phone, we kind of held off, but we didn't hold off until like 15 or 16. We held off until 12, and I would much prefer to have it hold off until 14, 15 at this point.
[00:44:34] James Currier: maybe 16. But there's safety, there's travel, there's Ubers, there's activities, there's my friends, there's all these excuses. It's very painful for 'em not to have one of these things. it doesn't make them feel like they're part of the community if they don't. So how do you fight that? you know, it's like in the fifties everybody was smoking.
[00:44:51] James Currier: Like if you weren't smoking, you weren't really hanging out. and I think it's the same thing now.
[00:44:55] James Currier: so I, I think it's challenging. I don't like it. I think it makes the world worse. and I think that we spent a lot of time talking with 'em about how it seemed to be making the world worse and they got sick of us talking about it.
[00:45:05] James Currier: three of them are with their friends paying $5 if they go over 30 minutes a day, uh, to each other as of now. Like they just came up with that themselves. they have to send a screenshot at the end of every day about what their usage was. And
[00:45:18] James Currier: certainly I'm not doing that.
[00:45:19] James Currier: I mean, I'm worse, I'm worse than they're at this point.
[00:45:22] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Well you've got a lot of founders to talk to, so,
[00:45:25] James Currier: there's a.
[00:45:27] Adam Fishman: That is really interesting. I love the fact that they're doing that in independently, this sort of like competition with their friends. I mean, I think another thing to think about is, yes, they had phones and technology, but you also encouraged.
[00:45:40] Adam Fishman: Other things that they could do with their hands, right? Like building stuff or doing an adventure or like just doing something that isn't playing on your phone. and, you know, creating a situation where they weren't just idle all the time.
[00:45:55] James Currier: we did, but only certain personality types would take to
[00:45:58] Adam Fishman: This
[00:45:59] James Currier: and COVID made it nearly impossible for two years.
[00:46:01] Adam Fishman: Oh yeah. And your kids were right in the thick of that, like right in high school and middle school
[00:46:06] Adam Fishman: probably
[00:46:06] James Currier: Eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th
[00:46:08] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Wow. Rough. okay, I want to get to lightning round, but first I wanted to ask how can people follow along with you or be helpful to you in any way?
[00:46:21] James Currier: I am, easily trackable at nfx.com. I, we have a newsletter and I publish a lot of my thoughts on startups and whatnot. There. I have a Twitter thing that I don't, I'm not super active on @JamesCurrier. And that's it. I haven't taken the initiative to do what you've done, which is to find this incredible topic and then create a wonderful podcast about it.
[00:46:41] James Currier: So there's, other than that, people can send me great companies and people can send me great people and, and people can tell me about great personal development things and retreats and, adventures.
[00:46:52] Adam Fishman: Great. and I will, uh, give a plus one to that, uh, NFX newsletter. I am a subscriber. I get it regularly. Uh, not too many emails, you know, I maybe get one every few weeks or so, maybe once a month. and they're always great. I. So really like the, really, like the articles that you're publishing there. so yeah, just head to plus one that, okay.
[00:47:12] Adam Fishman: Lightning round here it is, very simple rules. I ask you a question and you say one of the first few things that comes to mind and it's a judgment free zone, maybe some laughter and agreement, but I will never judge. In a negative way. so here we go. Uh, what is the most indispensable parenting product that you've ever purchased?
[00:47:35] James Currier: the real answer is it's all the sort of personal development seminars and books that my wife and I have done.
[00:47:40] Adam Fishman: Okay.
[00:47:41] James Currier: the product is probably the white noisemaker for $45 off of Amazon so that you can sleep
[00:47:45] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Uh, that's a popular one too. what is the most useless parenting product you've ever purchased?
[00:47:52] James Currier: the Baby Einstein DVD
[00:47:55] Adam Fishman: Okay. Okay. True or false, there is only one correct way to load the dishwasher.
[00:48:01] Adam Fishman: Okay. Would everyone in your household agree or disagree with that statement?
[00:48:05] James Currier: Yes, everyone would agree with that. We just throw it in there, it's gonna be fine.
[00:48:09] Adam Fishman: Okay. Great. What is your signature dad's superpower?
[00:48:13] James Currier: I make PowerPoints and give, uh, lectures to the kids. They're called dad talks.
[00:48:18] Adam Fishman: Oh, what is a, what's a typical dad talk topic?
[00:48:21] James Currier: we've covered everything. we covered, uh, gamification of life. We've covered college, we've covered drugs, we've covered sex, we've covered finances, we've color, we've covered, you know, where people make money. We've covered,anything you can think of we've covered status seeking behavior, and then we watched a movie.
[00:48:38] James Currier: she's outta your league. I mean, we've had a lot of fun with the PowerPoints. The first PowerPoint came when we moved to Switzerland and I had to explain to them like, and very quickly, like, this is what's happening and your life's gonna be okay. We're gonna move to Switzerland for a year and a half.
[00:48:50] James Currier: You're gonna be fine. and then after that, I started doing many more. when they hit 11, I started making PowerPoints and giving lectures. And some of the neighbors and the neighbors dads would come over to listen. Can. You gotta publish these on YouTube. I'm like, dude, I'm not gonna be on YouTube telling other dads how to be a dad.
[00:49:06] James Currier: Like imagine all, imagine all the hate you get for that.
[00:49:09] Adam Fishman: That's right. okay. When your kids were growing up, what was the crazier block of time in your house? 6:00 AM to to 8:00 AM or 6:00 PM To 8:00 PM
[00:49:19] James Currier: 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM
[00:49:20] Adam Fishman: Okay. getting four kids outta the house, I imagine. And time for school
[00:49:24] James Currier: Yeah. Someone's crying all the time.
[00:49:27] Adam Fishman: okay. If your kids had to describe you in one word, what would it be?
[00:49:31] James Currier: Creative,
[00:49:32] Adam Fishman: Okay.I, I. Probably would agree with them after this conversation. What is your go-to dad wardrobe.
[00:49:40] James Currier: an embarrassing wide brimmed hat.
[00:49:42] Adam Fishman: Oh, like suit, like protect you from the sun style wide. Okay. Yes, that's, that is a perfect dad move right there. what is the most embarrassing thing you've ever done in front of your kids?
[00:49:53] James Currier: Probably coming downstairs in my underwear when their friends are around.
[00:49:58] Adam Fishman: They must have been mortified.
[00:49:59] James Currier: and then I shake everybody's hands.
[00:50:02] Adam Fishman: You just embrace it. Lean, lean right into it. 'cause you're already there. So, what is your favorite kid's movie?
[00:50:08] James Currier: Madagascar.
[00:50:09] Adam Fishman: What was the first nostalgic movie that you forced your kids to watch with you?
[00:50:15] James Currier: Star Wars four, episode
[00:50:17] Adam Fishman: Okay. That is a fan favorite on this,
[00:50:19] James Currier: we built an entire TV viewing room just for that moment and it was awesome. I got to sit next to my dad and my boy next to me. It
[00:50:26] Adam Fishman: Wow. Wow. That is amazing. how often do you tell your kids back in my day stories.
[00:50:32] James Currier: Daily, constant. It's a constant family joke. I da da twice already today.
[00:50:38] Adam Fishman: I love that. Okay. Now finally, you hinted at this earlier in the episode, but what is your take on minivans?
[00:50:46] James Currier: Love minivans I don't like buying stuff. I don't need stuff, but one of the only regrets I wish I had made was, well, I was in Haight Ashbury about 20 years ago and there was a T-shirt that said Minivan mega fun. And I didn't buy it, and I had a picture of a minivan and I, I should have been wearing that the last 20
[00:51:04] Adam Fishman: Wow. You could have worn that and then come downstairs in the underwear and you would've completed the circle there with the kids. So,
[00:51:10] James Currier: That's right.
[00:51:11] Adam Fishman: all right, James, it was a pleasure having you today on Startup Dad. I had a lot of fun. Great storytelling. Thank you for that. And I wish you and your wife and your four boys all the best, for the rest of the summer and the rest of the year.
[00:51:28] James Currier: Well, thank you Adam, and thanks for doing what you're doing. This is fantastic stuff.
[00:51:31] Adam Fishman: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with James Currier.
[00:51:36] Adam Fishman: You can subscribe and watch the show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Visit www.startupdadpod.com to learn more and browse past episodes. Thanks for listening, and see you next week.