Why Working Parents Are Assets, Not Liabilities | Alex Egeler (Dad of 4, Empathic Egg)

[00:00:00] Alex Egeler: make plans, follow patterns, but don't hold on tight to the outcomes and

expectations. Just be accepting of wherever it goes.

[00:00:08] Alex Egeler: Right? And I think the more kids we have, the more I was forced into that

and the easier it got when I let go of the expectations, like, well, this is what worked we'll, try it. As

opposed to, this is what worked, it doesn't work. What are we gonna do?

[00:00:22] Alex Egeler: that was the biggest one. I think that over the years, letting go of me made

parenting much easier for us.

[00:00:28] 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.

Today I sat down with parent career coach Alex Egeler, who helps working parents find. Roles. He's

been an engineering executive in the aerospace industry and a stay-at-home dad.

[00:00:51] Adam Fishman: He's a husband and the father of four boys. On today's episode, we

talked about how parents can find meaningful work that is compatible with having kids. How his

own career was upended multiple times by kids and how that changed his perspective on building

a career. We also talked about mental health and tragedy across four generations of men and his

family.

[00:01:12] Adam Fishman: Please be aware that there is some discussion of suicide in this episode.

Alex has some great advice and stories about following the good inside approach to sturdy

parenting, how working parents are an asset, not a liability, and how to show a healthy view of all

your emotions to your kids. If you like what you hear, please subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube,

or your favorite podcast player, so you never miss a weekly episode.

[00:01:37] Adam Fishman: Welcome, Alex ler to startup Dad, Alex, it is a pleasure having you here

with me today.

[00:01:42] Alex Egeler: Oh, it's great being here. Thanks for having me, Adam.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 1[00:01:45] Adam Fishman: Let's jump right in. you coach parents on how to find meaningful work

that also helps them be a better parent. And I want to start there. you have said that your own

career was upended multiple times by kids, and you have several of them. Tell me about your own

career being upended by having kids. I.

[00:02:09] Alex Egeler: I had always wanted to be a dad, and I had actually kind of thought that I

was setting my career up to be a present dad. I had avoided a lot of the things that I had viewed as.

Troubling choices my dad had made that had gotten in the way of him being a parent. And so I

really thought I'd set things up so that when I became a dad, I would be all set.

[00:02:34] Alex Egeler: And what that looked like was a job where I hadn't accepted any

promotions, kind of on purpose. I liked the, the work that I did, it felt impactful. but it was, I'll say,

not terribly taxing. on top of that, it had very clear boundaries. So I worked someplace where you

clocked in, you clocked out, you couldn't bring anything home.

[00:02:54] Alex Egeler: At the time, that wasn't even really an option because it was defense work.

And I was like, this is great. I'll be done with work. I won't even be able to think about it. Just put it

behind me and focus on my family. you know, it's kind of ironic looking at the show severance. I, I

actually was the model that I sort of thought like, I want to put my work life here and my home life

here and separate them.

[00:03:12] Alex Egeler: And of course that's not at all how it works both in the show and in real life.

So the first sort of major change was I came back from paternity leave and nobody had done my

job. they had just left it for three months and in fact they piled a few things on that. They said,

well, when Alex gets back he can handle it.

[00:03:29] Alex Egeler: And I couldn't get the thought out of my head of, well, if it can sit for three

months, could it sit forever? And now I was, that time that I was spending at work in these

meetings and on these things that clearly were not that critical. Was compared against the three

months I had just spent watching my son go from little potato on the floor to sitting up to starting

to talk to eating real food.

[00:03:52] Alex Egeler: real progression. And it worked, nothing. And so that was kind of the first

seed of doubt of maybe this isn't the right thing? And then of course we started to have, oh, well

daycare called, he's sick. And we have these questions and this idea of separating it out so it could

be all work wasn't gonna work at all.

[00:04:11] Alex Egeler: So I basically just left, I sat there, it was about a month. in that time, I saw

all of these things that I had thought were perfect and saw exactly how wrong they were. And I left

and I. I went to a small startup, the, manager there had kind of talked me into it during my

paternity leave and said, well, you know, I'll let you go back, but if you need something different,

we're here.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 2[00:04:38] Alex Egeler: And he kind of said, we're small, you can do whatever you want. in terms of

working, we all have laptops, we all have kids. And that was one of the keys where everybody on

my team, except for maybe one or two people it was all men. But we all had kids under the age of

five.

[00:04:52] Alex Egeler: And so that was really kind of the first clue of, it isn't about the work and the

job, it's about the culture and the people. And then from there I, realized that I had to let go of the

assumptions I'd made. So the first assumption was, I'm gonna want this hard boundary, and that

was wrong.

[00:05:08] Alex Egeler: And the second was, oh, I want to be at the big corporation.

'cause little

companies, they'll never work. It's too high pressure that was wrong. So I started kind of letting go,

and then I let go of the, well, I shouldn't become a manager, because I realized that what I actually

liked about the job was working with people, mentoring, and that used my natural skills in a way

that writing the computer codes didn't.

[00:05:29] Alex Egeler: So I got promoted. I, took a manager position and I got promoted to be an

executive. the whole journey was every step of the way, taking the things that I had said, well, this

is what it takes to be a good working parent. And then doing the opposite

[00:05:42] Adam Fishman: I mean, it sounds like becoming a dad. Totally changed your perspective

on career and what works and, what doesn't. Is that

[00:05:51] Alex Egeler: Yeah, definitely. So the question I asked about my job before was, is this job

worth the money? the time that I spend, is it worth the money that I'm getting? And it very quickly

changed to, is this worth the time I'm spending on it, right? It had to have a baseline amount of

money to support our life and, be financially meaningful.

[00:06:10] Alex Egeler: But the question was really, if I'm gonna spend eight, nine hours a day here,

are these the people I wanna be with? is this time that I am spending on this work meaningful to

me? Is it something I'm happy that I'm doing? And is it impactful? Right? That whole idea that I saw

my work sit for three months.

[00:06:25] Alex Egeler: That really bothered me because it was like, that's really important. this

time, three months in my kids' life is gonna be like, an eternity.

[00:06:32] Adam Fishman: Yeah.

[00:06:33] Alex Egeler: my work isn't moving at a similar pace, if I'm not seeing the impact I'm

making, then it's just gonna be so hard to motivate every day.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 3[00:06:41] Alex Egeler: so I say those were the two ones was really just understanding how I was

gonna spend my time and making sure that it was making an impact not just in me, but also me on

the company, that it was worth it to do.

[00:06:52] Adam Fishman: Yeah. And we'll come back to a little bit how you coach, parents about

this and their career decisions now. but I wanna talk about something that is very recent, for you,

which is this week. I've been following you on LinkedIn and, you posted this series on LinkedIn

sharing four generations of men in your family and their mental health.

[00:07:14] Adam Fishman: So your grandfather, your own father, yourself, and now your son. And

there's a lot, I mean, this was, these were some heavy topics LinkedIn. I mean, happy topics for

anything but LinkedIn. I mean, there's. Alcoholism, suicide. Your own struggles with depression,

your son's bipolar diagnosis. can you talk a little bit about the impact of all of this stuff on the

generations of parenting in your family and how you've seen that evolve over time?

[00:07:45] Alex Egeler: looking back at my sort of pre having kids and my understanding of

parenting, the impact that I'd seen from specifically the men was. Again, I'm gonna do the

opposite. what I had seen from my dad was struggles with mental health, not taking care of

himself and then going to, building his own company and then it falling apart.

[00:08:11] Alex Egeler: And that coinciding with him also taking his own life. And soobviously I

was 11 at the time and my brain makes connections, right? And some of those connections were,

failure at work is worse than death. That your success at work is your whole identity. That's what

you're here to do. And then what piled on top of that was my grandfather.

[00:08:32] Alex Egeler: So after my dad died, my grandfather and I became closer because I was

actually his last living relative at that point. He, my dad was an only child and I was an only child.

my grandfather had had a brother who'd passed away and then by this time his wife, my

grandmother had passed away. and I got all that focus and it was a blessing 'cause he was such a

smart and caring man and I saw a new side of him after that.

[00:08:55] Alex Egeler: But at the same time, I also got that same pressure that my dad had gotten, I

clearly received, which was, I was the first one to go to college. I worked my way up from the mail

room to be, you know, board of trustees. I've put you in a great position to succeed. Now don't blow

it. and I. Internalized that heavily.

[00:09:15] Alex Egeler: That was a huge piece of a lot of the decisions because again, he was

somebody that I looked up to. I had seen my dad go through this transformation of, what happened

when he blew it because he took his own life. So that seemed like the thing to avoid at all costs. so I

talk about in the post about myself really literally, the first time I held my son in the hospital, he's

handed to me right after he was born.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 4[00:09:38] Alex Egeler: I looked into his eyes and Among the many thoughts that ran through my

head, probably one of the first three was my dad must have been really sick because looking at this

little baby there is just no way I would ever leave him. Like, I can't imagine a set of circumstances

that would make me say, you know what?

[00:09:54] Alex Egeler: I'm gonna go away from this. my whole life is going to be protecting this

baby, making sure he's setting up. how could your brain say he'd be better off without me? That

just, it doesn't make any sense to me. So it was a real moment in sort of my grief around losing my

father, even though it was 25 years later.

[00:10:13] Alex Egeler: was that idea of just how precious that sort of father son or, father child

bond is and how my dad must have been really, really sick and in so much pain to walk away from

that you know, that took a little while for me to work through that sort of change because it, I didn't

think about my dad on a daily basis.

[00:10:35] Alex Egeler: I'd sort of finished grieving or thought I had and it kind of started the

process all over again. So since becoming a a dad, I have thought a lot about what were the legacies

that these two men who both I loved very much and I know loved me, how did it impact my

identity around work?

[00:10:51] Alex Egeler: that's really what this, these posts were about is kind of tracing it. Where

does it start with my grandfather, what he didn't have, and how did he push that onto my dad?

What did my dad not have? And then push that onto me and then me kind of saying, no, we're not

doing this game anymore.

[00:11:06] Alex Egeler: We're not gonna push things. even despite all of that and being, therapy

myself, couples therapy with my wife really focusing on this, my son's still struggling with

depression and bipolar and me. That put everything in my life in a new light too, because my

whole teenage years were focused on working through the depression of losing my dad.

[00:11:25] Alex Egeler: And the truth is, I was probably depressed anyway. I was depressed and lost

my father. It wasn't that the depression came from that. And certainly looking at my son, who

thankfully has not had any nearly as traumatic, but is going through such a similar phase that kind

of makes you say, right, depression, there's lots of things that come into it, but it isn't triggered by a

negative event necessarily.

[00:11:46] Alex Egeler: That's not the only way it happens. It's just we had this ready-made excuse

for me. in tracing it through, I think those were the major pieces that I figured out of. it all comes

from love, right? There's so many things that you, you do as a parent or your parents did for you

that come from love, but still don't turn out the way that they expect or lead to unintended

consequences.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 5[00:12:04] Alex Egeler: And that piece of my identity was a piece that we really had to work through

and break so that I could make sure I wasn't doing at least the same things that were done to me on

down the line.

[00:12:15] Adam Fishman: Yeah. And,

[00:12:17] Adam Fishman: I'm curious, do you talk to your oldest son about this, stuff,

[00:12:22] Adam Fishman: obviously you've had some about bipolar, but like about mental health

and generational mental health and, approach to life.

[00:12:29] Alex Egeler: Yeah. so the thing to know about my 12-year-old is he is, he's bipolar, he's

been depressed, he has anxiety, but when he is regulated, his emotional intelligence and empathy

and understanding of it is like, at least 20 years ahead of his age. one of the things that was caught

us so off guard, was that he could sit and have a calm discussion about how he was feeling in very

complex sort of description of it, and then the next day would just be so dysregulated that you

couldn't even get him to say a word, just completely broken down.

[00:13:04] Alex Egeler: We were kinda like, well, what's going on? And then. Bipolar was a good

explanation for it. That is literally what was going on. But, he started talking about being

depressed, started and talking about, I don't know why I wanna live the first time. He probably said

that I think he was three. you know, you don't put a lot of stock in it, right?

[00:13:21] Alex Egeler: Because he doesn't understand so much of it. and it wasn't daily from then.

It was, you know, it would come in waves. And so we wouldn't hear things like that for a while. And

then we would, and when we kind of got into the worst of this, we had already had the discussion. I

actually, my wife and I discussed it with his therapist and said, you know, we have this family

background.

[00:13:40] Alex Egeler: How do we talk to him about it? Right? When is the right time? Because we

don't wanna. We don't wanna put thoughts in his head, right? We don't wanna give him ideas about

this, certainly if he's already sort of curious about it. But we also don't wanna hide it from him. And

so she had a very thoughtful, sort of approach and, well, I focus on this, right?

[00:13:56] Alex Egeler: I'd say talk about the impact it had on your life to him, right? not talk about

your dad. I mean, don't, don't focus on him in the act. Focus on the impact it had on your life and

let him see and understand just how devastating it was. not that it was, oh, this is what my dad did,

and then here's the outcome, but really focus on, I.

[00:14:15] Alex Egeler: I am who I am because of this, and here are all of the things that sort of we

struggled with.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 6[00:14:20] Alex Egeler: then we let him ask questions, right? We let him be curious about it and

sometimes he would say Great and walk away. And then other times he would come back two days

later and say, Hey, I have a question about your dad.

[00:14:31] Alex Egeler: You know, and I tried my best to answer them. And again, always thinking

of that. how do I do this safely for him? But, so we probably started talking about it. I would say

when he was seven or eight and sort of the really bad depression came when he was another year

after that.

[00:14:46] Adam Fishman: so obviously there's a lot of, support that has been needed over the

course of those generations. And, you talked a little bit about therapists and you talk about support

for your son and, your mom, I'm sure your wife, like, I'm very curious to hear, uh, and I'm trying to

do a better job about this on this show is asking the dads on the show about the support structures

that they've. Surrounded themselves with in order to be successful.

[00:15:13] Adam Fishman: you had a post about this pretty recently too, and I'm wondering if you

could talk a little bit about those support structures.

[00:15:18] Alex Egeler: Yeah. I think one of the key points that I have is the realization that when I

talk about this, people say, oh, you're so brave, you're so strong. And that's not how I feel it. Right? I

don't feel brave because it doesn't feel scary, I guess. And to me, those have to go, there has to be

some element of that.

[00:15:36] Alex Egeler: What I do feel is just so blessed and fortunate, and when I look back at sort

of the person I was when my dad took his own life, I. I was in a really bad place even before that. I

don't think I was on much of a path for success in life.

[00:15:51] Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:52] Alex Egeler: not a kind person. I was not thoughtful of other people.

[00:15:56] Alex Egeler: I didn't really understand any of that. And then when my dad took his own

life, so I was an only child. My mom, we became a single mother and it was just the two of us and

we became very, very close. But two other important things happened, one, when my relationship

with my mom was that she treated me more like an adult, I think more quickly than probably

would have happened.

[00:16:17] Alex Egeler: had to do some things just from a practical nature, but she also started to

help me understand what my strengths were and where I could help her. if there was a situation

where she's, oh, you're better than this. You're better at me than this, you go do it. that was a

different kind of confidence than I'd had sort of before.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 7[00:16:34] Alex Egeler: I had been very spoiled, but that had also made me feel very. powerless,

kind of. and the other piece was we had a nanny, who had been there since I was one years old.

And you know, at age 11, I wouldn't need her on a daily basis, and she kind of came back into the

fold. So she would pick me up after school if my mom had to work.

[00:16:52] Alex Egeler: she kind of took a much bigger role back into our lives and she was very,

very cognizant of the way my mom was parenting me, and she would sort of try to balance it out.

So if she saw my mom kind of pushing too hard in one way, she would make sure to be the other.

And, and sometimes that meant doing things that even weren't natural to her.

[00:17:11] Alex Egeler: but she was thoughtful of what I needed. And so, just kind of anyone to give

that balance, right? Was to be thinking about it in that way was just such a blessing. it really did

help counter a lot of the things that I saw in my mom. My mom is a generous person to a fault. and

she really struggles to

[00:17:29] Alex Egeler: Put herself into the equation. And so my nanny Gina would always be like,

well, what do you need? she'd bring that focus back and say, it's great if you could serve everybody

else. There's time for that, but there's also a time when you have to look after yourself. that was one

of the ones I don't think was very natural to her.

[00:17:44] Alex Egeler: She's also a very giving person who has a terrible time putting herself first.

But I think she was very, focused on making sure that that was something I was also seeing and

understanding.

'cause the model my mom was following wasn't as good. And then of course, I talk

about my wife and just how lucky I am to have found her and her to have agreed to put up with me

and all of the faults that I have.

[00:18:07] Alex Egeler: And, the one story that really kind of puts that in focus that, that I tell is.

You know, we talked about sort of the identity that had been locked into me from my dad and my,

my grandfather. So the company that I went to work for eventually went out of business. And at

the time it was the middle of the pandemic.

[00:18:23] Alex Egeler: We had four kids, we had twin two year olds who'd been at home with a

nanny since basically they were born. And we knew we needed to do things a lot differently than

we were doing. We needed to get them back out into life. Our older kids were going back to

elementary school. so we decided, okay, well I'm just gonna take a break.

[00:18:40] Alex Egeler: I'm gonna be the dad whose job it is to get everybody launched and it'll take

three, six months, whatever, and then I'll go look for another job. And I had become, an executive

at the aerospace company and I had all of these people in the aerospace industry saying, Alex, you

just tell us where you want to go.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 8[00:18:54] Alex Egeler: You can go at a job. And I, I said, no, I need to go home and be with my

family. you know, people always say, oh. what did people think? And honestly, I mean, where we

live in the circles we travel, I never heard anybody say a word to me that was like, oh, I can't

believe you're doing that, or you're staying home.

[00:19:10] Alex Egeler: All of the trouble came from inside me. I felt like I was failing. I felt like I

was, this was it. Now, I was blowing it too, the way that, my grandfather had explicitly told me not

to. So I tried to work my way through this. And then one day my wife just kind of said, I know

you're feeling a lot of pressure and a lot of sort of struggle around this.

[00:19:29] Alex Egeler: Whatever you think about what happens after people pass away, there's two

ways you can tell this story. You can either believe that your dad and your granddad are

somewhere looking down on you and saying he's blowing it,

[00:19:43] Alex Egeler: That is the sort of the impression you're giving yourself every day. You're

feeling like you're letting them down. I said, or you could tell the story that wherever they are,

they're high fiving and saying, Alex is the first one who figured this out in time to do something

about it. And they are thrilled that you are able to do that.

[00:19:59] Alex Egeler: in an instant I was like, oh yeah, no, that's much better. Let's go with that.

And then that struggle went away. And that was really the moment where I realized that that

identity piece and how you think through is so important. But like how many people would have

known to tell that story, you know, to say exactly those words, to understand me and how to do

that.

[00:20:18] Alex Egeler: So. she took away months of struggle in a four minute conversation. and she

does it for my son too. And, you know, he has both of us and we, we both come at it from very

different angles, but that's sort of what we see as the success for him is each of us bringing

ourselves to it in the way that we handle these and tagging it on different spots.

[00:20:41] Alex Egeler: So if he's in crisis, she's the one to go because I am too triggered. I mean, I'm

thinking, oh my goodness, I'm gonna lose him. This is like my dad all over again. And I'm much

better now than I used to be, but all the therapy in the world is not gonna get me through that

situation.

[00:20:57] Alex Egeler: So she tags in and she's fantastic. She's calm, she's, you know exactly what

he needs in that. and he realizes, he said. When I'm in crisis, I know mom is the one that I need. I

know mom is the one who's gonna help. She said, when I'm just feeling down, I need you because

she doesn't get it. that's sort of the pair off, you know, the trade offs that we do and, and why again,

it is her support coupled with, for me and for him, that is really going to make the difference, not

just my ability to kind of work through the generational trauma.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 9[00:21:30] Adam Fishman: Yeah. What a great team. You and your wife. that's amazing. And her

name's Emily too. I

[00:21:34] Alex Egeler: Emily? Yeah.

[00:21:35] Adam Fishman: gi give her some, give her some credit in this. she also works, outside of

the home at, in Stanford. and the two of you have four kids, which you have mentioned. two of

those kids are twins. Um,

[00:21:49] Adam Fishman: was having a large family always part of the two of your plan, like

together.

[00:21:56] Alex Egeler: Nope. we had thought two kids and I'm a planner much more than she is. It's

not that she isn't, but I'm, I'm an anxious person. I like to make plans. and so we had talked about it

a fair amount we had two boys and my wife had really always wanted a girl. before we were

married, my, my wife had picked out the name for her, her daughter, and told me that, you know, if

we have a daughter, her name's gonna be Lucy after my grandmother.

[00:22:20] Alex Egeler: I love the name Lucy. That's great. I've met your grandmother. She's a

wonderful person. anyway, we had two boys.

[00:22:26] Alex Egeler: We said, okay, this is going okay. We're doing fine. We'll try for number

three. Maybe this will be a girl. it was buy one get one free at the stork factory that day. So, and I

remember, so my wife is a twin, which is of course one of the, the factors in whether you have

them.

[00:22:43] Alex Egeler: we were sitting at the, you know, the very first ultrasound and my wife had

been sort of extra sick with this one. You know, she'd been feeling this pregnancy a little bit more

and the doctor goes, oh you know, this one's gonna be a little different. And she was like, what do

you mean? The doctor said, well, there's two babies in there.

[00:23:00] Alex Egeler: And she just looked over at me and she goes, ah, we shouldn't have joked

about it so much.

'cause of course we always joked like, oh, maybe we'll have twins just like you

have. And she's like, oh, we shouldn't have joked about it so much. So we found out, and then of

course it was two more boys.

[00:23:13] Alex Egeler: So people always ask, oh, are you guys gonna go for another girl? Like, no.

Do you know what the Fibonacci sequence is? It's 1, 1, 2, 3. We're not rolling the dice on any of that.

[00:23:24] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Oh man. that would be something. And it would be three boys, of

course. Um,

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 10[00:23:29] Adam Fishman: there's two things there on that, the bonus set of, uh, twins that you,

that you got. One is, I think statistically if you have a couple of kids of one gender, it's actually

slightly more likely that you'll have another one of that gender,

[00:23:44] Adam Fishman: And then the fact that your wife is a twin and you hadn't yet had twins,

like the universe is conspiring against you on this one.

[00:23:51] Alex Egeler: we went back and looked after. We found out at what are the, you know,

statistical chances they call them risk factors, right? It's not exactly a fair name to it, but what are

the, what are the factors that go into that? And we had every single one of them. So it's a lot of

random stuff.

[00:24:08] Alex Egeler: if the woman is taller than five foot seven, it increases the chance of having

twins by like 12

[00:24:14] Alex Egeler: they're all sort of, you know, in the like eight to 10 to 12% that, but we had

every, you know, the age of the mother of course,

'cause they are moving the eggs more frequently.

[00:24:23] Alex Egeler: I mean now all of them, every single one we were like, you know, if you add

these up, which is not exactly how it works, but it would be, we were like 65% likely to have twins

and also 60% likely to have boys. And so we looked at that and we said, well, it's a good thing we

didn't do the math.

[00:24:39] Adam Fishman: Yeah, don't pump that info into chat gt and it'll tell you your likelihood

of, of that outcome.

[00:24:46] Adam Fishman: okay, so you've got four

[00:24:47] Adam Fishman: kids now. so you've gotten to be a dad three official times, but you've

[00:24:52] Adam Fishman: got four, you know, four kids to parent. Uh, what are some of the most

surprising things that you've discovered as a dad?

[00:24:59] Alex Egeler: I would say the most surprising piece was I never had any siblings and just

seeing those interactions and now that there are so many different connections there's so much

complexity in those dynamics that I didn't really understand and that, the twin dynamic adds a

whole nother piece of competitiveness and things like that.

[00:25:21] Alex Egeler: So I think it's really just sort of how much they interact how much they look

up to each other, but also are really annoyed and frustrated by, all of that sort of duality of those

relationships. And. again, we, we joke about in the family all the time. So my second Patrick, love,

love, loves his older brother.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 11[00:25:38] Alex Egeler: Like older brother walks on water and we saw this from a really young age.

So there's a, a funny story where we were asleep and Little Patrick he's out of the crib, so he's like

between one and a half and two, I mean, just out of it. And he toddles into the room at like three in

the morning and wakes me up.

[00:25:55] Alex Egeler: his superpower is he can wake you up without ever talking to you. So my

wife and I would wake up and he would just be standing there like this in the middle of the hour.

Wow. Okay. So I'm sure he used that. I woke up and he just looked at and said

[00:26:08] Alex Egeler: Shahan mess. And then he just took my hand. We walked out into the

hallway and we found his older brother who, you know, didn't share a room, he must have heard

him or something, was sitting on the floor and he was crying and he'd thrown up, he'd clearly been

trying to get to the bathroom but didn't make it.

[00:26:21] Alex Egeler: He was just sitting there. We didn't hear it, but Patrick did. So he came and

got us and I was like, oh Patrick, thank you so much. I started helping Sean, my wife started

dealing with the mess and Patrick goes, Patrick Mess. And we're like, no, Patrick Mess. And so he

walked over to the toilet and he leaned over and he tried his very best to throw up into it.

[00:26:39] Alex Egeler: Just turned red in the face, you know, like, oh, this is what we're doing right

now. And we're kind of like, you know, we've got our own problem. We're like, Patrick, no, that was

the moment where I was like, wow, he really will do anything his older brother does.

[00:26:51] Alex Egeler: Like he is that dedicated to the cause. So

[00:26:54] Adam Fishman: the old sympathy puke,

[00:26:55] Alex Egeler: yeah. Right. he wasn't able to do it, but we were kind like, good effort bud.

You know.

[00:27:02] Adam Fishman: Well, at least he knew where it was, ideally supposed to go. So that's a,

that's a start. That is an amazing story. so you probably have tons of stories like this, but if you

could rewind the clock, to the time before you had your very first kid

[00:27:14] Adam Fishman: and you bumped into to younger Alex, what advice would you give the

younger version of yourself about raising a family?

[00:27:22] Alex Egeler: the one thing that I would say took me a long time to actually understand

and believe. kids are not machines, and if you put these same inputs in one day, you will not get

the same outputs the next day. So I'm an engineer by trade. My wife has a PhD in chemical systems

biology, so her work is around the human body.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 12[00:27:41] Alex Egeler: Mine is around things that are very, very predictable, and so she wasn't

surprised by this patch that when you do something one day and it works out great, when you do it

the next day, it works out terribly. I was very frustrated by this, so I definitely tell. look for

patterns. Sure. But don't bet on them.

[00:28:00] Alex Egeler: And don't believe that you understand what things contributed to what.

Right. Just 'cause bedtime went great one night 'cause you did this. Sure. Do it again the next day.

But don't hold on tight to that outcome working out the same way.

'cause I definitely held on to

those outcomes way too tightly.

[00:28:15] Alex Egeler: make plans, follow patterns, but don't hold on tight to the outcomes and

expectations. Just be accepting of wherever it goes.

[00:28:24] Alex Egeler: Right? And I think the more kids we have, the more I was forced into that

and the easier it got when I let go of the expectations, like, well, this is what worked we'll, try it. As

opposed to, this is what worked, it doesn't work. What are we gonna do?

[00:28:37] Alex Egeler: that was the biggest one. I think that over the years, letting go of me. Made

parenting much easier for us.

[00:28:44] Alex Egeler: the other one is, it is all about seasons and milestones are gonna come and

go and sometimes things come go and then they go backwards. You know, I think the first time we

had a major sleep regression with Sean, I, again, I like lost my mind.

[00:28:56] Alex Egeler: Like he was sleeping six hours a day and now he's up every two hours.

Right? And he's like, oh, he's getting a tooth. You know what I mean? That the so many factors

come in, but you sort of think, ah, we've checked that box now we've accomplished this and moved

on. And then, no, you're right back where you started four months later.

[00:29:10] Alex Egeler: So just recognizing that sometimes it works and you're in a good season and

sometimes you're in a hard season, you don't know the good ones come back, the hard ones linger,

but they end and just roll with it, right? Don't, try to force the good seasons into bad ones and don't

try to force the bad ones into good ones.

[00:29:29] Alex Egeler: If things are good, just let it be. And if they're not, just hold on tight.

[00:29:34] Adam Fishman: I love that. Don't get too comfortable when it's going well

[00:29:37] Adam Fishman: and don't get too anxious when it's not

[00:29:39] Alex Egeler: Right, because it's it's gonna come back around either way.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 13[00:29:41] Adam Fishman: Yeah, that's one of my takeaways from what you just said. And my other

one is that kids are probabilistic and not deterministic systems.

[00:29:48] Adam Fishman: So much like we talk about with AI these

[00:29:51] Adam Fishman: days.same input, very different outputs.

[00:29:53] Adam Fishman: It's like vibe coding children versus actual coding.

[00:29:57] Adam Fishman: Um, okay. in your parenting journey, you, uh, told me that you try to

follow the good inside approach to sturdy parenting.

[00:30:07] Adam Fishman: can you tell me about the good inside approach to sturdy parenting and

what, what that means?

[00:30:12] Alex Egeler: Dr. Becky Kennedy, I came across her with a TED talk that she has about

repair, and the first time I watched it was one of those things where I. I saw how much of that I did,

that was good. And then all the pieces of it, she was so clear about these are the things that are also

getting in the way.

[00:30:29] Alex Egeler: And again, around repair. One of the key ones is as a parent, I mean

knowing that I'm not supposed to, I still do it all the time, is they'll do something and then you say,

well, look what you made me do. Right? Or I, you know, if you hadn't done this, then I wouldn't

have had this response.

[00:30:42] Alex Egeler: you need to decouple it, right? Kids are gonna do infuriating things. It's your

job as the parent to handle it, right? You can't outsource your emotional, tenor to a three-year-old.

That makes no sense. So if they did something that made you upset, it's still not their fault.

[00:30:56] Alex Egeler: and so, you know, that idea of repair and, and what it really looks like,

[00:31:00] Alex Egeler: It really does change the ball game. Having implemented that, especially

with my older kids, you can see when I take on my piece, they take theirs on right away. You know,

over time they start to say, oh I'm sorry I did that. I see how that worked. And you don't have to say

it, right.

[00:31:15] Alex Egeler: If I say it and put it on them, they get defensive. But when they come to that

on their own, then they get understanding and it's, you just build on that time after time. another

one that she had is the most generous interpretation, at work, I had kind of come up with this,

seeing my team, working with, you know, other groups.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 14[00:31:31] Alex Egeler: We kind of were a support structure at the, the group that I worked for

building a computational tool to design a supersonic business shed. And then other people would

take those tools and my team would get so mad, you know, they did this with it, or they're asking

for this and it's, doesn't make any sense.

[00:31:46] Alex Egeler: And I kind of came to this, I didn't call it that, but I said, well, let's assume

that they're not trying to ruin the company, right? Let's assume for a minute that your goals and

their goals are the same. what we're actually discussing is just a different implementation. It's not

that you think that they're stupid, they're not, they got a job here just the same as you.

[00:32:02] Alex Egeler: And it's not that you think that they're trying to destroy the company. They

want to do their goals the way that they think it should be done, the best way. And so this is just a

communication problem, but the easiest way is for you to start from the idea that I'm sure you are

trying to do what's best for this company.

[00:32:16] Alex Egeler: I'm not seeing how this is it. Can you explain? Right. Not. Why are you

asking for this stupid thing? Just start from you know, what she calls the most generous

interpretation, right? What is the best possible way you could look at this? And my team started

doing it and they were like. This is amazing, Alex.

[00:32:30] Alex Egeler: These conversations go so well. We get to the point in like two minutes,

right? We get to where that difference came from when even if they are mad at me, if I come in

with that, it still turns around so quickly. And, and again, when I saw her describing that, I

thought, oh, this is makes so much sense.

[00:32:48] Alex Egeler: 'cause your kids, they're gonna be mad at you, they're gonna be frustrated.

But if you come in saying, I know you were trying to do something nice, or I know there must be

some reason why you were doing this, just explain it. they calm down.

[00:32:59] Alex Egeler: Start your parenting from, what is the best possible explanation for why

they're doing that?

[00:33:03] Alex Egeler: And then just tell yourself that story. Right? And a big part of it is those

stories, what you're telling yourself. And the other one that I think is, important is this is a good

kid having a hard time. obviously with my oldest son, we've had challenges. We've had times when

you know, he's been suspended from school, he's not, he's been unable to go to school because he's

so depressed.

[00:33:25] Alex Egeler: And just that mantra of this is a good kid, he's having a tough time. What

can I do to support him another quote is, kids do well when they can. Right? That's another one

that I love is if they're not doing. Things that I know they know they should be doing.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 15[00:33:40] Alex Egeler: It could be a motivation problem, but it's much more likely a skill problem.

And the skill is I can't regulate my emotions. I can't communicate what I need. I can't recognize the

signs in my body. Something along those lines. And so just again, when I'm frustrated, starting out

with this is a good kid and they're having a hard time, what can I do to help them with the hard

time as opposed to how do I change this behavior?

[00:34:03] Adam Fishman: Yeah,

[00:34:03] Alex Egeler: mindset has made such a big difference.

[00:34:06] Adam Fishman: so most generous interpretation, repair, and this is a good kid having a

hard time. I think, I saw another story that you told about maybe when your oldest son was five.

Threw some milk across the

[00:34:22] Adam Fishman: room at school and got sent home.

[00:34:24] Adam Fishman: can you tell the

[00:34:25] Adam Fishman: listeners that, that story? 'cause I think that's a really good example of

both most generous interpretation and a good kid having a hard time.

[00:34:33] Alex Egeler: that wasn't my oldest son, that was one of the twins. And that was a story

from literally the day before.

[00:34:38] Alex Egeler: so one of the twins is by far our most explorative

[00:34:44] Alex Egeler: kid. He is highly curious about how everything works and sometimes that

looks like what happens if I throw this across the room? we got the call and. After school program

said, you know, he's had his third strike, gotta come get him. he's just not able to listen. He's not

able to participate and we can't have him here.

[00:35:01] Alex Egeler: He threw milk, it made a huge mess. Just come get him. And they're very

understanding. They're awesome with him. so I went and I got him.

[00:35:09] Alex Egeler: It was like maybe two 30 in the afternoon and we got home and I said, okay

buddy. I know you were throwing milk, but why were you doing that? And he said, I don't know.

Okay, well let's check, did you eat lunch today? And he said a little said, okay, well why don't we

have a, a snack? What do you want?

[00:35:25] Alex Egeler: He said, I want some cracker. So we ate some crackers. He said, no, I don't

need a snack. And I said, well, I'll just put some crackers here and why don't you eat one and we'll

see, you know, why don't we just test it out? He said, okay. And he ate cracker. And he goes, Ooh.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 16You know, daddy, I was hungry. And so he ate a whole plate of crackers and then I said, why don't

you have some milk?

[00:35:41] Alex Egeler: And then we'll, we'll go potty and see how that goes. He goes, okay. So he, he

drank a little and then he went to the bathroom and he said, ah, I feel a little better dad. I said,

okay, let's go upstairs and we'll just sit down and have a little quiet time. He goes, I don't wanna

have quiet time i's like, I know, but maybe just things were overwhelming and you've just been,

let's just, we'll just go listen to a little music.

[00:35:58] Alex Egeler: It's okay. I'll sit with you. You can get in your pajamas, get in bed. it's a

special treat. He's like, okay, yeah, I'll do that. So we get in and he's sitting there. And then he kind

of puts his head down on the pillow and I Richard turn, he goes, daddy, why you turn out the light?

And I was like, no reason bud.

[00:36:12] Alex Egeler: He's like, well, I'm not sleepy. And I said, okay, if you don't wanna sleep, you

don't have to. again. We're just gonna calm our bodies a little bit. He was asleep within 10 seconds

and you know, he woke up from the nap and he came downstairs and he said, daddy, I was tired.

[00:36:24] Alex Egeler: And I was like, I know Bud. He's like, I was hungry and I was tired and I

wasn't able to listen. I said, I know. I said, that's okay. So you just gotta listen for those signals in

your body. And so I told about, in the story I mentioned my oldest son when he was at daycare, we

had a little laminated card for him and it had a picture of food, a picture of water, a bathroom, and

a little guy sleeping.

[00:36:45] Alex Egeler: And we laminated it and we gave it to him. And we said, whenever you're

having trouble, go pick up the cart and just try any of them. Right. Just pick one and say, I'm gonna

see if this makes it feel better. We'll just get curious about it. you know, the teacher would be like,

Sean, are you okay?

[00:36:57] Alex Egeler: And he's like, no. And he would go over to his little cubby and he'd pick out

his carb. just start from the basics, right? He didn't mean to throw the milk, he was just way

overstimulated and dysregulated.

'cause none of the systems of his body had what they need. He

was tired, he was hungry, he was thirsty, had to go to the bathroom.

[00:37:12] Alex Egeler: And so again, it's really easy to get into the. The mindset of, I need to punish

you to motivate you to not do those things, but it's gonna work much better if you just, again, walk

him through, like, I didn't say you have to eat the crackers. I just put the crackers in front of them

and said, why don't you try one?

[00:37:28] Alex Egeler: no human being has ever gone to sleep for being screamed at. Right. And

believe me, I have tried this a lot of times with my kids to just verify and prove, but like, if you

scream, just go to bed.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 17[00:37:39] Alex Egeler: They don't. Right? That doesn't work.

[00:37:42] Alex Egeler: But just saying, why don't we, why don't we just sit, just have a sit, see what

happens.

[00:37:46] Alex Egeler: that mindset of, okay, he's a good kid, he's having a hard time. Let's just go

through the basics. Right? He's five, he's not really gonna talk through his problems, but I'll just

give him what humans need, right? And we'll see if that gets us anywhere. And so the next day he

went back to the after school and he said, guys, I was just hungry and tired and had to go to the

bathroom.

[00:38:04] Alex Egeler: the teacher was like, that's great. Okay, well we can help you with those

things, right? And so, is it gonna work the next time? Probably not, right? But my oldest son now is

like, I'm feeling really angry. I'm gonna go have a snack. Like he, he gets it right. He knows it took a

long time. he sort of understands, like I do lose that connection to my body.

[00:38:25] Alex Egeler: Sometimes I don't feel hungry, I feel angry. But let's guess, right? Like

nothing bad is actually happening. Maybe I'm just hungry or, the other one we talked about is sort

of a, was this the appropriate response for this situation? Right? Like something happened that was

fairly, minor in terms of a slight or frustration, but we blew up and it's kind of okay, not in the

moment, right, but later on kind of say, Hey.

[00:38:49] Alex Egeler: That seems like that was a bit of an overreaction, right? Like we can all

agree what your brother did he shouldn't have done, but it didn't deserve this. And just to kind of

tune in that oh yeah, like something else was going on. What was that, sort of mindset around it.

So the basics, and, and starting from that, as opposed to starting from this kades punishment

'cause they need to fix the way they're thinking about it.

[00:39:12] Alex Egeler: Like, no, he was doing the best he could and it wasn't very good. So let's help

him figure out why that was.

[00:39:17] Adam Fishman: Yeah. I love that. And also, as you mentioned, it works for adults too.

[00:39:22] Adam Fishman: our kids can teach us a lot.

[00:39:23] Alex Egeler: I don't think it's, a coincidence that a lot of the companies that started

offering free snacks had happier employees, right? Like it's

[00:39:30] Alex Egeler: pretty low bar for that.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 18[00:39:32] Adam Fishman: Yep. Yep. Now, speaking of companies, uh, I don't wanna put you out of

a job with this podcast, uh, hopefully we're not at risk of that. but can you share a little bit about

how you coach parents who are maybe worried about approaching the job market as a parent?

[00:39:49] Alex Egeler: I'd say there's a few main beliefs that kind of go with that. And the focus of

my approach is really on self-assessment, self understanding and introspection of, well, what is

important to you about a job. I think a lot of us go through the path of our career you know, we

don't ask those questions along the way, especially when things are going well.

[00:40:12] Alex Egeler: and so a lot of the people I work with are ones who have been very

successful and now having a kid sort of threatens What that success might look like and having to

change that sort of metric of success. a lot of 'em start from, there's no way I can get a job that I'll

like and will be flexible for parenting.

[00:40:30] Alex Egeler: And I'll kind of say, I don't believe that. Right. I believe there's a lot more

options than people really understand or believe and. We can remove the constraints, right? Or

understand why those constraints are there.

'cause again, in my story, that was really the big piece

as I moved through the sort of my career, what was most important was knocking down these

assumptions that I had made about what would be good for my family or what I could handle,

things like that.

[00:40:54] Alex Egeler: And so it really is around helping them think through those constraints and

understand what does make me happy, why, where does that come from? What rules have I made

about my career that maybe are getting in the way? And once we knock those out, we have a

completely different space to look at for jobs.

[00:41:11] Alex Egeler: that in a lot of cases, people weren't even thinking about or that wasn't the

direction they were going. So that's really kind of the first step. And then I take all that information

and we put it into the actual sort of mechanics of the job search. Right. How do you. Show up for

an interview and tell the story of your impact.

[00:41:27] Alex Egeler: How do you prove to them in 30 minutes that you are the one who can do

this job and make a change for them and sifting out? You know, again, a lot of it is people who

maybe struggle to talk positively about themselves or struggle to go over the aspects of their story

'cause they feel like, oh, well I don't wanna brag about it.

[00:41:46] Alex Egeler: Things like that. So really preparing you for the job search, not necessarily

for the job, but a lot of the stuff carries over. I think that's really the biggest piece is just getting

them to believe that there is a path to, that there's a path to a job that can work for their family in

whatever that needs to look like and can give them the sort of benefit of a career, the sort of keep

that part of their identity intact or in a way that still serves them.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 19[00:42:13] Adam Fishman: so knocking down those barriers and those internal constraints, giving

people the belief that they can do it and then the tools to go do it. there is a belief that I want to talk

about that's related to this, and it's kind of like an unspoken one. I think a lot of parents maybe

falsely think about this for themselves, working parents, there are some, hiring leaders at, at

companies who are, are wondering about this too, and that is that, a working parent is a liability

because they have a split attention span. home life's bleeding into the workday because it just is,

[00:42:47] Adam Fishman: right? You get the call from daycare at. One in the afternoon that your

kid threw milk across the room, you gotta go deal with it. but this idea that the working parent is a

liability, it, that's not how you see it.

[00:42:58] Adam Fishman: So how do you see, the idea of a working parent?

[00:43:01] Alex Egeler: So first off, I want to say that, that bias, especially towards working moms,

but towards working parents in general, dads actually kind of get it both. In a lot of cases they get a

little bit of a benefit from being a working dad, but moms certainly bear the brunt of this, of

feeling like, of course.

[00:43:16] Alex Egeler: And so, you know, the first piece is that just dives into the gender

stereotypes, assuming the mom is gonna be the one. I love the work of Paul Sullivan and the

company of dads, you know, talking about the lead dad, right? There are families that lead dads

and my wife jokes that when other families get really know us, they know to text me about play

dates, not her, because I'm the schedule keeper.

[00:43:38] Alex Egeler: I know where all the kids are. She's at work. but that clearly that gender bias

is, is a piece of it. And then to me, what I saw working on a team of all working dads was we all

were making an impact. We all wanted the company to be successful and saw this opportunity to

be a part of something big.

[00:43:55] Alex Egeler: And it didn't stop us that our kids had soccer practice. I still coached my

soccer team. All, you know, they were dropping their kids off. It was just, okay, we're all in this

together. We know we're gonna get this done. We just have to do it. However works for us. And so,

you know, when I was leading the team, I.

[00:44:11] Alex Egeler: I would say, okay, I got the call, I gotta go pick up my kids. And that

normalizes it. Right? That makes it okay. And none of them ever felt nervous about, oh my

goodness, what am I gonna do? In fact, a lot of the, dads ended up sort of being that because they

were like, well, it's actually much easier for me to leave work than it is for my wife because, you

know, her company isn't nearly as understanding.

[00:44:30] Alex Egeler: So, you know, giving that opportunity actually put the dads in a position to

be that on top. So it's, it can become a sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy as well. But I think the most

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 20important piece is that bias comes from this fear that I. your job is going to be less important once

you have kids.

[00:44:46] Alex Egeler: there are people for whom that is true, but I think for most people,

especially ones who've been highly successful up to that point, they're not just gonna give it up,

especially, they're not just gonna give it up for nothing. So I think it's parently, which it does helps

with, planning leave and leave counseling.

[00:45:01] Alex Egeler: They did a study and they found that, most moms don't leave the workforce

after they have a child. They just leave their job, They're much more likely to go to a new job than

they are to leave the workforce. So to me, it seems like the problem is that bias in the first place,

that if you are willing to make it a.

[00:45:16] Alex Egeler: A viable workplace for working parents. You will get the best of them.

They'll go find it if you don't give it to them. They have, clear idea of who they are. So much more

productive and efficient. Man. I mean, I look back at what I did before and how much more I can

get done in a day now, you know, it's crazy.

[00:45:34] Alex Egeler: So I think you can take all those, if you view it as, all I need to do is give

them a little flexibility and trust that they can get their job done.

[00:45:42] Alex Egeler: that seems like a no brainer. You know, people say, well, how do you find a

workplace that has a good culture for working parents? My answer is, people are nervous about

letting the interviewer know that you're a parent or anything in the interview. I understand that it

may work against you, but in my opinion, if you say I'm a working parent, and that disqualifies

from the job, you didn't just get rejected.

[00:46:01] Alex Egeler: You dodged a bullet. maybe that job would've worked for some amount of

time, but eventually it would've been burnout. You would've been forced that choice one way or

the other, and it would've been a tough one. So I say, go for it. And not everybody has that luxury.

Sometimes you need a job to put food on the table.

[00:46:16] Alex Egeler: I get it. The question I always say to ask is. how do the business systems in

this job help with flexibility? If I'm a caregiver, and the reason I use the word business systems is

because at our company, one of the things that enabled us to all work remotely and

asynchronously was we had tools.

[00:46:34] Alex Egeler: we were software development, but we developed all of these tools so that

you knew where to go to understand where your work was. You knew how to document it, you

knew what to do. And if somebody couldn't make a meeting, there was a way that that person

could get all that information without ever needing to talk to somebody.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 21[00:46:48] Alex Egeler: those are things that make a business run well. They don't have anything to

do with being a parent. They don't have anything to do with flexibility.

[00:46:52] Alex Egeler: Those are the outcomes that come from it. If you're running your business

well, right? We don't measure hours work. we give timelines and deadlines and clear definition of

what the task is and we expect you to go get it done. Then you don't need to talk to them every day.

[00:47:04] Alex Egeler: You don't need to count how many hours they're sitting in the seat. So, in

my mind, again, for working parents, you don't have to ask, well, what's the culture like? You just

have to ask, is this a well run business? 'cause a well run business that values, that will work, work

fine if you're a working parent.

[00:47:18] Adam Fishman: really good advice. Thank you. we will hopefully send many more

coaching clients your way after this episode.

[00:47:24] Adam Fishman: so you, have had a very unique experience, that not too many guests

have had on this show, which is one, having so many kids. but I'm curious to hear about your

experience in going from one kid to two kids and then doubling that, what of those was hardest?

[00:47:42] Adam Fishman: what did you learn in that?

[00:47:43] Alex Egeler: the more families I've talked to actually, that are in a similar boat, largely

agree with this, the hardest transition was one to two. It was easier to go from zero to one, and it

was easier to go from two even to four. And the reason for that was one to two gave us a false sense

of security.

[00:48:02] Alex Egeler: We thought we knew what we were doing

[00:48:04] Alex Egeler: you know, going from zero to one, We had everything laid out. We had built

this up going from one to two. we were like, we got this. We've been through this before. We didn't

have everything planned out. We didn't do all of that preparation.

[00:48:15] Alex Egeler: Our second kid I mean, he was a dream. he's such a good natured kid. Like

he was a really good baby and it broke our systems. I mean, if he'd been a tough kid, I don't know if

we would've made it, but my wife and I were just mad at each other all the time.

[00:48:27] Alex Egeler: We were tired and it's 'cause we didn't adapt anything, right? We didn't, we

didn't factor in what multiple kids would really look like and how we needed to change our

communication styles, our just daily routines, all of these things. We just couldn't envision it and it

hit us, you know, like a tidal wave.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 22[00:48:45] Alex Egeler: And then we were just in it and we were, fighting battle. I mean, my oldest

son still was starting to show some of these signs of anxiety difficulty. This little guy again, he was

a dream. But three month old takes a lot of work.

[00:48:57] Alex Egeler: So it was about six months when, my wife and I kind of realized like, this is

not sustainable.

[00:49:03] Alex Egeler: We can't do this. And we were committed to making it work. But I just

remember, I. I feel like you're not doing as much as I'm doing. And she just screamed back. Well, I

feel exactly the same way. And I was like, okay. So that can't possibly be true, right? I mean, we

can't, if both of us feel that way, that's a feelings like that's a feelings problem.

[00:49:21] Alex Egeler: One of us, or both of us are. Misidentifying the situation and the problem.

[00:49:26] Alex Egeler: So we went into couples therapy, around this and kind of what we learned

was that a lot of the patterns and communication things that we did, even starting back from when

we were dating, were problematic and we'd made it work.

[00:49:38] Alex Egeler: We kind of had powered through, but there were a lot of sort of underlying

pieces, things that I did that I didn't recognize had an impact on her, and similarly her on me and it

sort of. The second kid, it just put everything to that boiling point and, and reached it where it all

just broke. And so we spent I think nine months in couples therapy just going over, you know,

basic stuff.

[00:50:00] Alex Egeler: Again, bits of connection, love languages, what does each of us need when

we say this? What do we mean? How do we avoid getting defensive in that first round? And when

one of us is tired, how do we say, okay, well I'm tired too. What are we gonna do?

[00:50:14] Alex Egeler: Not making it into an accusation just like, we're both in trouble here. We

need to sort this out.

[00:50:19] Alex Egeler: And we worked through all of that, and we came back so much stronger and

so much better. And we know that because when we had four kids, we just looked at each other, we

were like, we can do this. there was never that, that panic of like, oh my goodness, how are we

going to handle this?

[00:50:31] Alex Egeler: It was really just, okay, we've got this, and we kind of did. And you know, we

didn't get anywhere near to that breaking point that we did from one to two.

[00:50:40] Alex Egeler: I've met other families that have three, you know, four kids and they're

kinda like, one to two was the hardest. It really was the point where you have to think about it all

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 23differently. And that transition is, is where it goes. And from then on you're kind of set, you know

what it looks like.

[00:50:55] Adam Fishman: Yeah. And also just to pull this back to, uh, kind of your story there

[00:50:59] Adam Fishman: it's just good people having a hard time.

[00:51:02] Adam Fishman: Alright, well I wanna talk about a couple more things before we get to

our lightning round. Um, one is, what is a mistake that you think you've made as a dad?

[00:51:11] Alex Egeler: I think the biggest one that I made was My wife and I, this is not just me. We

really wanted to focus on the social, emotional sort of experience for my kids. and again, with my

background and knowing how emotions had shaped, certainly my dad's journey, his ability to

handle them, you know, the amount of therapy I've been in and, and dealing with it and seeing

that it has really turned out to be kind of one of the strengths that I have in business and life and

relationships.

[00:51:38] Alex Egeler: We wanted to make that a very healthy part of sort of raising kids. And the

mistake I made was I thought, okay, so that means I can't show any negative emotions. if I'm angry,

I can't show it. If I'm sad, I can't show it, right? I don't want them to feel those. I need to withhold

those from my kids and I can do that.

[00:51:55] Alex Egeler: I mean, I'm very capable of sort of choosing how to express emotions.

mostly because for a long time I expressed them in ways I didn't want to. And so I had to learn how

to do that. And so that, idea that it was important to hide negative emotions, I did that for quite a

number of years.

[00:52:13] Alex Egeler: Emotions are signals that your body sends, and they're just things that you

need to read. And negative ones are just as important as positive ones. I had to rethink this. If I

want my kids to be able to handle being angry, they have to see a good version of anger, right? If

they never see anger, then when they do encounter it in their real life, they're just gonna be

confused.

[00:52:31] Alex Egeler: They, I don't even know what this is, right? I don't know how I'm supposed

to react. Maybe I'm scared, maybe I'm angry too, but if they've never seen it, right? And, and that

looking back, again, that was my household. all the anger was under the surface and it just made

this very uncomfortable sort of existence.

[00:52:46] Alex Egeler: But I didn't really understand what was going on, right. So it was really that

idea that you show all emotions and show them in a positive way. Right? I mean, show them for

what they are. So if I'm angry, that doesn't mean I shout. I mean, I try not to, I do. Sometimes they

only listen when you shout.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 24[00:53:01] Adam Fishman: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:02] Alex Egeler: my wife and I, again, very explicitly discuss like, We want our kids to listen.

And so it's like, you're about to walk in the street. I'm going to shout at you then, you know, like

that's a big deal, right? If you shout about everything, you shout about, like, why did you leave this

Toya on the ground?

[00:53:14] Alex Egeler: Why are you eating your dinner that way? Then when they're walking out to

get in front of the car, they're gonna be like, it's just mom and dad shouting again. Whatever, right?

Like, we need to have something that they don't tune out. So that was our goal.

[00:53:23] Adam Fishman: Yeah. You're modeling a, healthy, uh, interpretation and display of, of

emotion.

[00:53:28] Alex Egeler: and especially all the emotions. Right. Not not pushing them down. Yeah.

[00:53:33] Adam Fishman: Okay. I have two final questions for you. They're both about technology

[00:53:36] Adam Fishman: I'm calling this AI corner now because, you know, AI is a thing we're

[00:53:41] Adam Fishman: all reading about. have you found any ways to leverage AI in your

parenting?

[00:53:47] Alex Egeler: A little bit. So I mean, I definitely have played around with asking it

questions. one of the big ones is we are heading into, you know, puberty, adolescence with my

oldest and just to say kind of what are ways that parents talk about this? What things should I

expect? You know, I'd take some of those general questions.

[00:54:06] Alex Egeler: I know, I have to have this conversation with my child. Give me a script.

And I was like, well, I haven't done that, but we have some tough conversations coming up.

[00:54:13] Alex Egeler: So, that was a good one. I'm a little bit more interested in them being

exposed to it though, and actually playing with it. So I, I mean, one of the big days, one time we

had a, a day where we took the book, if I built a house where, you know, the, main character talks

about sort of like how he'd make all the rooms in his house fun.

[00:54:30] Alex Egeler: And then he is like, and also I'd add these other rooms that like you've never

seen in a house before. And so we, we did the like, oh, let's invent a room, what would your room

be? And then we went into Mid Journey and like, you know, said like, I want you to make a page

like this, like this book and like this image and this is the room and draw pictures.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 25[00:54:46] Alex Egeler: And then we looked at different options and, oh, I like this one better than

this. Let's change that. Just a big idea of like what prompting looks like, right? Like how do you

communicate with it? How do you get something? And they thought it was so cool that, they made

this page of the book and

[00:54:59] Alex Egeler: 15 minutes or something. So I think that's really where the piece of it is side

of sort of planting that seed. And my son went to middle school, my oldest and I, I asked him like,

did they talk about AI at all? And he was like, no. And I said, ask your English teacher, like what is

the expectation around this?

[00:55:15] Alex Egeler: 'cause you need to know, and they need to start thinking about that. And he

did. And she said, I expect the writing to be yours. I, if you want to use AI for research, if you want

to use it to think of ideas, to brainstorm, to, lay out the idea. But she's like, the actual writing, I'm

expecting to be yours.

[00:55:30] Alex Egeler: And I was like, that's very clear and understandable.

[00:55:33] Alex Egeler: she said, you know, I'm not gonna run this through the, is this chat GPT

filters or anything? But she was like, you know, if they're inclined to go start using that, I wanna

foster it.

[00:55:41] Alex Egeler: I don't want to, I don't wanna steer them away from it. So

[00:55:43] Adam Fishman: that's a great answer. I think a lot of school districts and individual

classrooms are kind of struggling with how. What do we do here? Right?

[00:55:50] Adam Fishman: Like any kind of new technology. And this one is fairly disruptive to

[00:55:54] Adam Fishman: that. So. good stuff. I'm also very curious to see some of the pages of, if I

had built a house, uh, that you generated Midjourney.

[00:56:01] Adam Fishman: I bet they're awesome.when you think about like the long-term role that

you want technology to play in your kids' lives, you know, having been an engineer,

[00:56:08] Adam Fishman: what do you think about that role?

[00:56:10] Alex Egeler: the first place my mind goes to with that question is around screens. And, a

lot of people see it as a very negative thing. So we are not anti screens in our family. I mean, first

off, I play a lot of video games, so it would be kind of hypocritical and we play video games with

them. So, you know, it's a part of our life and, and we kind of recognize it.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 26[00:56:28] Alex Egeler: So we tell them to ask their friends, well, how much screen time do they

get? What do they get to do? And what it turns out is that we are sort of in the middle, but it is a

very bimodal distribution that there's a lot of families where really there's no rules at all. And the

kids just kind of do whatever.

[00:56:41] Alex Egeler: And there's a lot of families where it's like, zero, we never touched them. Or

like, it's a super special deal. what we want is to instill the idea that this technology, you're

surrounded with iPads, phones, tablets, PCs, like they're gonna be there.

[00:56:53] Alex Egeler: You know, they're gonna be there when you get out into the world and you

need to figure out how you build the muscles on. Like, how do I set this down? How do I do

something? How do I interact with it? And then put it away? we have limits. Our goal is to help

them find things that they want to do more than screens.

[00:57:07] Alex Egeler: We found a few with my older son, he will, put down his, you know, his

tablet to go read a book or to go throw a lacrosse ball in the backyard. those are the things that he's

like, this is good. and it's gonna be hard, especially.

[00:57:17] Alex Egeler: Some of them are showing some signs of neuro, of other NeuroD diversities,

and that is gonna be an even bigger challenge for them, but it's still one they're gonna have to face

and

[00:57:25] Adam Fishman:

[00:57:25] Alex Egeler: we don't wanna walk away from it. So we shoot for the middle ground and

then whenever they're like, how come I don't get more?

[00:57:30] Alex Egeler: We're like, well, we could be like this family where you get zero. And they're

like, oh yeah, right. Good point. we've done no screen weekends and actually we just recently did a

no screen week just not with the intention of sort of taking it away from them, but just to show

them this is what your life looks like without it.

[00:57:45] Alex Egeler: And what was interesting, we did it for the no screen weekend to help them

put bounds on it. So we kind of said like, well, how was it? Both my two older kids were, able to

sort of articulate it. Were like, it was really hard in the morning when we first woke up and it was

really hard in the afternoon, but like in the middle of the day when everybody was up and we were

doing activities, like I didn't care at all, you know, but when I was tired, at the end of the day, I

didn't really wanna play.

[00:58:06] Alex Egeler: I didn't really wanna do anything. Like having, just to be able to watch a

show was nice. And they had experiences, they were like, yeah, that's fair.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 27[00:58:13] Alex Egeler: Right? And so we don't really have fights around that because we showed

them what it was like, and then we kind of, we rolled it all the way back and then we said, okay,

well help us figure out what, what works and what makes sense.

[00:58:23] Alex Egeler: and they were kind of on board with that. And to be honest, like again,

screens get a very negative reputation.

[00:58:30] Alex Egeler: My oldest learned, I. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division

when he was six years old playing a very simple math iPad game called Math Climber. it is an AI

driven, I mean, it gives you certain classes of problems and figures out what you know, and it gives

you other problems to lead you towards ones you do.

[00:58:47] Alex Egeler: my kids basically learned how to sound out words from laying that you

touch the letter and it makes the sound, you know, it's not the only tool. You can't just hand your

kid that and have it work. I mean, literally, my, my son, my oldest came to us and he was like,

what's this sign?

[00:59:00] Alex Egeler: And I was like, that's division. And he is like, what's that mean? And I was

like, it's the opposite of multiplication. He was like, got it. and then he learned division that day.

Like he understood it.

[00:59:08] Alex Egeler: We actually, we have a category that we call educational screens. Like, oh,

you can go do screens, but it has to be educational. And, we have a lot of different apps and things

that they can go do that are engaging, but we'll also give them some learning associated with it.

And again, we saw during the pandemic just how valuable that could be.

[00:59:26] Alex Egeler: I don't think it's right to say screens are bad. the relationship we want them

to have is to recognize it's just a tool. It's not good or bad. And how you use it and what you do with

it, right?

[00:59:34] Adam Fishman: Yeah. And I love that advice on how to help kids kind of find their own

right balance, like the no screen weekend experiment to see

[00:59:41] Adam Fishman: like where does it actually fit in nicely into the,

[00:59:44] Adam Fishman: into the life. before lightning round, how can people follow along or be

helpful to you?

[00:59:50] Alex Egeler: most of my, uh, attention and advice comes from LinkedIn. That's where I

spend most of my days, so finding me there. Sending me a message or following along with my

posts, whatever, whatever suits you. and my posts are not just about finding a career.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 28[01:00:03] Alex Egeler: I do a lot of posts around, you know, kind of this multi-generational piece of

mental health.

'cause that's so important to me. Just general parenting stuff. Sometimes it's little

tricks.

[01:00:12] Alex Egeler: So, that's the LinkedIn, that's, that's where to find me.

[01:00:15] Adam Fishman: amazing. Okay. It's time for lightning round. what is the most

indispensable parenting product you've ever purchased?

[01:00:24] Alex Egeler: A bidet

[01:00:26] Adam Fishman: why is

[01:00:26] Adam Fishman: that? Yeah.

[01:00:27] Alex Egeler: my least favorite sentence as a parent was always dad. It's a messy one.

people talk about outsourcing to robots and think, look, there's a robot that will do this for you.

Bring it in the house. So

[01:00:38] Adam Fishman: do you

[01:00:38] Adam Fishman: have a most useless parenting product that you've ever purchased?

[01:00:42] Alex Egeler: there's nothing that I was ever been like actually angry that we purchased,

like this promised so much more than it actually did.

[01:00:48] Adam Fishman: true or false, there's only one correct way to load the dishwasher.

[01:00:52] Alex Egeler: I hope that that's not true because the way we do it is a complete disaster

and then I, we'd really be missing out. But people come to our house and they're like, this is how

you do it. Like, I don't know. For some reason We run the dishwasher a lot less often.

[01:01:06] Alex Egeler: whatever it is, I'm sure we're not doing it.

[01:01:08] Adam Fishman: I love that. Love that humility. what is your signature Dad's superpower?

[01:01:14] Alex Egeler: I have almost no sense of smell. that's one of those ones where you don't

even know that you have that. Like if you're blind or deaf, like it comes in pretty quickly. Like, I

had no idea until my wife and I spent a lot of time together. She'd be like, oh my goodness, do you

smell that?

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 29[01:01:26] Alex Egeler: And I was like, no. And after times she was like, I don't think you smell

things. I also don't have much of a sense of taste, but superpower because we run into all of these

situations where something will happen.

[01:01:36] Alex Egeler: My wife goes, this one's you, because she has, you know, she had super

smell and then she got pregnant, then it got even worse. So she's like, I can't even go in this room.

And I'm like, it's really not that bad. I'll just go in. So

[01:01:46] Adam Fishman: Yeah,

[01:01:47] Alex Egeler: 10 outta 10, one parent with no sense of smell. Fantastic.

[01:01:50] Adam Fishman: yeah. Especially with four boys,

[01:01:52] Adam Fishman: that's gonna be, that's, that's powerful. okay. If your kids had describe

you in one word, what would it be?

[01:01:58] Alex Egeler: I hope caring.

[01:01:59] Alex Egeler: that would be the one I would shoot for

[01:02:01] Adam Fishman: Okay. What is the most difficult kids TV show that you've ever had to sit

through?

[01:02:08] Alex Egeler: Cayo. it's a show about a little spoiled brat and he gets his way when he

cries and we would watch and be like, why would you put this on tv? But one time there was an

episode about like a special needs kid who comes to Kai's class.

[01:02:21] Alex Egeler: And in that episode, the way they handled it, like the kids are frustrated

with this kid and this other kid is frustrated with them and then they sort of like figure out that it's

just 'cause he's not really understanding and then they eventually like make this beautiful game

that's sort of around him and he, and include him and have like, I get teary just thinking about that

episode.

[01:02:39] Alex Egeler: I was like, this is literally one of the best episodes. And it just made me mad

because I was like, you can do this. And then what happened on all these other episodes anyway,

[01:02:47] Adam Fishman: Now, this next one, I think I probably after this conversation could have

guessed this from you, but what is your favorite kid's movie?

[01:02:55] Alex Egeler: inside out.

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 30[01:02:56] Adam Fishman: Yes, in a great film it is.

[01:02:58] Adam Fishman: what, uh, nostalgic movie can you not wait to force your kids to watch?

[01:03:05] Alex Egeler: Battery's not included. The older two have seen it waiting on the next two.

Yeah.

[01:03:09] Adam Fishman: you know, you are the first person who's ever said, battery's not

included. One of my favorite childhood movies the only movie that I ever went to the theater and it

was sold out and they did not have another ticket for it, so I had

[01:03:21] Adam Fishman: to go back another day. Yeah.

[01:03:22] Adam Fishman: great film. Battery's not included.

[01:03:24] Adam Fishman: Big fan. Uh, okay. How long can a piece of food sit on the floor in your

house and you will still eat it?

[01:03:30] Alex Egeler: Yeah. That one depends on the food The floor aspect is almost unimportant

in that I'd say

[01:03:35] Adam Fishman: Okay. What is your favorite dad hack for road trips or flights with your

kids?

[01:03:42] Alex Egeler: it's actually mom hack 'cause mom came up with it. But we have a new toy

or stuffed animal, something that they've never seen, especially when they were little, like

something that would quietly play music, you know, not like super loud, but that they'd never seen

something novel that we would literally open up like the takeout of the bag when the pilot is like,

we are ready for takeoff.

[01:04:02] Alex Egeler: Like, that's the moment we take it out. And then that would keep their

attention for at least all of the sort of transition of like taking off loud noises, all the stuff. And we'd

be up in the air and they'd kinda be like, I'm tired of this, what's going on? And they wouldn't even

notice like, oh yeah, we've taken off now.

[01:04:14] Alex Egeler: So we used that one so much every single trip. And the kids never, they

never saw it coming.

[01:04:20] Adam Fishman: Wow. Way to go. Way to go, Emily. Good

[01:04:22] Adam Fishman: job.okay, last question. Four kids. What is your take on minivans?

SHARE YOUR GENIUS 31[01:04:28] Alex Egeler: we have a great minivan story. when we were found out, we were pregnant

with twins, we were sitting in the hospital and my wife, you know, we had to go for like extra tests.

We were sitting there and we're kind of, I mean, shell shocked, like just sitting silently next to each

other and this news.

[01:04:43] Alex Egeler: And she looks over and she goes, have you thought about the car yet? And I

was like, oh, we don't even have a car that can handle this many kids

[01:04:50] Alex Egeler: What was hilarious was when we told the older two boys that we were

having twins. The older one, Sean goes, okay, three points.

[01:04:59] Alex Egeler: And we were like, go for it. And he's like, number one, we don't have a big

enough house. And I was like, true. He goes, number two, we don't have a big enough car. And I

was like, that's good. That took us like 20 minutes to think. He's like, three, we don't have enough

money for this. And we were like, oh, it's probably true too, what we're gonna have to make to do.

[01:05:14] Alex Egeler: But I love that he came up with the car thing in like one minute. It took us

20. So we bought a minivan literally three days before the twins were born. my wife waddled in at

37 and a half weeks pregnant with twins. And we were like, we need to buy a minivan. And guy's

like, yeah, you do. So we had no leverage.

[01:05:30] Alex Egeler: There was, they knew we were not walking away from this deal.

Fortunately, the sales guy had twins and he was like, okay, I know what you're going through. I, I

think we got a little sympathy from that, but yeah, so we have one, it's my wife's car. I only drive it

when it's full. It's just part of life.

[01:05:44] Adam Fishman: Okay, Alex, uh, thank you so much for joining me on Startup Dad. This

is a really fun, uh, and enjoyable conversation, an emotional roller coaster. I wish you, uh, the best

of luck in your, uh, coaching endeavors and your, and in your family.

[01:05:59] Adam Fishman: So thank you for joining me.

[01:06:01] Alex Egeler: Thank you so much, Adam. Fun to.

[01:06:04] Adam Fishman: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Alex ler, startup

dad is available in all your favorite podcast players and YouTube. Just search for startup dad to find

it anywhere you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening, and see you next week.