Speaker 2
Thank you for sharing that story with me. As your kids have started to grow up, as you've grown up, what would you say some of the more surprising things that you've discovered as a dad are?
Speaker 1
Oh, man. You know, I'll share some funnies. Well, actually, let me ask you this. What is the most common thing you hear from people?
Speaker 2
One of the things that sticks with me is people sharing how perceptive kids are and how much they kind of absorb from you. And I think we all know that in theory, but I've had a lot of stories about kids sort of observing things that their parents are doing and kind of modeling that behavior. And that's been really a lot of people mentioned that.
Speaker 1
So I'm glad you brought that up, right? So my wife, Vivi, has been the mother and father figure for our kids, especially the girls, because think about it. I wasn't really around just running for the business, building the community. And I didn't realize how much of an impact she's had on them until now we're relaxed. I mean, we're living the best life. And summer that just passed, Vivi had to go and spend the whole summer back in the Bay. It's hot in Dubai. Anyway, she was teaching all summer to catch up on some shifts. The kids school ended and it ended June. So I was to bring three kids to San Francisco myself. So nine year old, five year old, and barely two.
Speaker 2
On a cross world flight from Dubai.
Speaker 1
15 hours, couldn't sort the visa for the nanny. So no nanny solo.
Speaker 1
I kid you not. It might be the most memorable flight I have ever taken in my life. My nine year old went into Vivi mode. She turned into like the reincarnation of my wife. And she, as soon as we got to the airport, she changed my two year old diapers. She managed him the whole flight and didn't sleep with me. And we were just playing fun games and joking with each other while she put him to sleep. And then she barely nap. And she's like, you just hang out with Amelia and I'll take care of Zayn. Man, it was such a memorable flight. And I get off and when I go, she's like, you look energized more than anything. I'm like, this kid is something. And I guess, you know, I shouldn't have expected anything less because when she was seven and a half, she says, dad, why don't you go work for somebody who thinks like you so I can have my dad back. And now she says, you know, we like Dubai, daddy. We don't like California, daddy, because Dubai, daddy is always around. And so, so I think, you know, she, my wife has manifested herself into the kids and they're all extremely wonderful. But my nine year old is literally like having a partner in crime. It's like, it's, she's an adult. It's like having a, we have adult conversations. She does a lot. She plays music. She's into singing. She's into art. She's good in school. And she just self-manage, just takes care of stuff. Wow. And I dream kids. So I'm lucky and fortunate. And I think a lot of this is nurture. It's not nature. Like 90% of what you are is nurture. And that's a key, key, key, key learning for me. And so she's had good nurture and I had nothing to do with it, unfortunately.
Speaker 2
So with your three kids, do you have a rebellious kid like you? Clearly your oldest daughter sounds like a lot like your wife. Very driven and sort of absorbed a lot. But who's the rebellious kid in your family?
Speaker 1
The second one, Amelia, rebellious. And obviously, she had to fight for her life and will herself into existence when she's born like what? Four and a half, five months early, sitting in the incubator when kids around were dying. There's a picture that is so memorable for me. I think when she came off the hospital and done and dusted the first time, I think within a week or four or five days, they want the mother to have skin to skin with the premature baby, so to feel that warmth. And I think it's the first time my wife held her on the chest. There's a picture of her. You don't see the face. I mean, you can't like it's horrifying, right? It's barely formed. There's a picture of her with her finger like this. It was literally shaped like this. And I don't know if I can find the picture, which basically symbolizes that everything's going to be okay. She's the rebellious one in everything. And you know, because she went through that, we just give in. We just give it. Yeah, I often joke. Me and my wife after sort of 15, 14 years of being married now feels like we're dating again. Because we're working US time zones. I have a very light work because I just do my podcast and I'm on three boards. I'm not in the day to day of the company. She teaches and then every three months she goes back to the Bay Area for two weeks to shift. So all our day is spent together. And this is hilarious and you laugh, right? Because I think one of the questions you had was the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to you as a dad. Yes. And it's always caused by my five year old is like, me and my wife literally are like, we're dating again. We went from teenagers and prom dates to then Met School at startup and sort of residency and into this chaos. So it's like we're dating again. Unfortunately, we can do that in our, you know, 40s, early 40s. And so like every time we're getting intimate, she like finds a way to barrel through the door and I'm like, wow, man.
Speaker 2
And that's- He's seeking missile.
Speaker 1
It's a heat seeking missile and then like it's like, and then my wife feels bad and she has to accommodate it and she's like this. And she's like, you know what? If this is the only problem we have, be happy.
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's so funny. I love to ask people about parenting frameworks or guardrails that they have. I think you mentioned in our prep for this episode that you're a big fan of the positive discipline approach to parenting. So just tell me about how you bring that to parenting and what that means for you.
Speaker 1
You know, I think a lot of times we praise the results, almost everyone, right? I think growing up, especially folks from like the Indian subcontinent Asian from Asia, right? Like you praise the results and if the results are not there, then you reprimand based on results. And I think my wife had it a lot harder than I did because it was pretty much like, you got to be doctors. If not, we're not paying for school kind of thing. My parents were a little more easy going because my mom stayed at home and my mom's super emotional like me. So everything's like, ah, my fingers hurt. I don't want to go to guitar class. Oh, somebody punched me. I don't want to do karate anymore. That's fine. Right? Like she was very pampering. And I think I needed tough love in life, which I got later in life for me to realize that life is not roses. I think though, you got to reward the effort, not the results. I don't know. There's this great book called the score takes care of itself. And what that means is if you follow a process and you keep following the process, eventually the score takes care of itself, provided it's the right process. And so we do positive affirmations and reward the process, the effort, the effort involved, versus saying, ah, this is so great or this sucks and you could have done better. This is great. You're trying and that's what matters. The other thing, what I realized and it's probably my family heritage or mine and my wife's family heritage coming from Indian parents or, you know, Indian background, it's all about education. I used to be able to climb walls when I was a kid and a number of crazy things. But every time I was told, focus on studying, focus on your math and your English and all of this. And don't bother about all of this. We don't want you to get hurt. You're going to get injured. And I think to myself now, my second child, like Amelia is everything I am. She's huge into gymnastics and climbing and all of these things. And I would have probably pursued acting or music or the arts. Right? That was my, my side, creative side. But I never had that encouragement because think about it, my parents were poor. They were trying to put food on the table and make sure we're educated. So they were worried that we go down this path and, you know, we're going to end up broke. Right? Yeah. And now that we have stability, my goal is to make sure our kids have great experiences, whatever they do. Doesn't matter. They're an engineer or a doctor. As long as they create and have great experiences and are happy, they'll find fulfillment. And so one is that positive affirmation on the effort, like rewarding the effort, more importantly, and encouraging things that bring them joy. Because a lot of what we chase in life, especially in the Western world, actually, the whole world is society's definition of success. What always comes from the negotiable, I can't work in the city, but I need to take this job in the city. So I'm going to live in the burps and commute, even if it damages my quality of life. Or you know what? I can't eat healthy. I can't work out. So I'm just going to eat this crap. Everything starts with a negotiable. And I want my kids to experience non-negotiables. What are your values? And don't back down from that for any amount of money. Because ultimately money is no good. If it doesn't buy you the things that bring you joy. Yeah. And the things meaning the experiences or the way of life, the freedom kind of thing. And so we encourage right now they're in like gymnastics and art and drama and music and dance and rollerblading, whatever it is, they do more extra activities. And that fills up their life and time. Then school. And I truly feel what you do creatively outside of work, outside of your nine to five is what makes you as a human. Because think about it. Everyone is doing one thing. Go in a school or doing a nine to five. How many people step out of the nine to five to make time to consistently do something else to expand their creative side? What you are in business and in life is how you expand your brains outside of the nine to five.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's really good advice. A lot of parents will benefit from following that, I think.
Speaker 1
It's worth for us, honestly. I didn't know better. It's not my style. But you know, of course, I have a rock star of a partner and it's like reward the effort. And she's like, I was never rewarded for the effort. I was always told to excel in academics. Like I wanted to do all these things. And I'm like, yeah, I wanted to dance. I wanted to learn gymnastics. I'm 43. I can do the human flag right now. Why? Because as soon as I came into freedom, I started learning the things that I never could have access to as a kid. We're taking bachata, we're taking dance, we're working out. I wanted to do the human flag. So I practice that. I want to do the splits. I'm learning all of this now. I want to do them as a teenager.
Speaker 1
But I never had the opportunity. And so I'm like, why rob the kids? You're right. Why rob the kids of that? Let them do everything while they can and while they can grasp.
Speaker 2
Yeah. You've talked a lot about your wife and her being the rock of the family and the partnership that the two of you have and being kind of almost like you're in high school again now. I want to talk about the other side of this for a second because I always think this is funny. What is something that you and your wife don't agree on when it comes to parenting? School. I'm
Speaker 1
an anti schooler. Okay. I'm an anti schooler. I didn't finish high school. Like I said, I feel like if I didn't go to university, I would have expedited my path to becoming an entrepreneur. You never know because again, there's two sides to this and now I think we see eye to eye and she made me realize this. She's like, you talk a lot about community and you are everything you are because of community. And truly I am. People I know and Dubai or anywhere around the world to the growth equity firm that bought half of both and liquidated us. I know all of these people through my community, through the traction. It literally came to some event. I hosted and came into the fold. And so she tells me, how did you meet your co-founder? Because without Alex, there would be no both. There would be no company. This journey wouldn't be possible. I'm like, I met him in university where partners in every project. So she's like, that's what I'm trying to tell you. Kids can interact with the dogs only. Right. And if you put them, if you homeschool them, then they're only forced to interact with the dogs. They crave attention from other kids. And you may not care for the academics, you may feel like it's ancient. It doesn't change. I agree. But put them in there for the community and the social connection and the extracurricular. And so we never saw Iduai for a very long time on this. But when she broke that down to me in sort of what's important to me, which is the community and social connection, it started to make sense.
Speaker 1
yeah, for the longest time, we didn't see Iduai. And her thing is, I mean, she's doing well, she got in a med school second year of undergrad, I didn't finish high school. I've done okay. But in reality, you know, although I have this opinion that you don't need to go to school to be successful, the reality is if she didn't pay the bills for the last 10 years, I wouldn't be here either.
Speaker 1
Right. A lot of people talk about family privilege. Right. I may not come from family privilege, but I have a wife who's a freaking doctor at Stanford who persevered through three failed startups and paid the bills.
Speaker 1
I had privilege at home in my own way. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 2
good acknowledgement. A couple more questions for you. And then I want to get to my famous rapid fire round. What is something that you feel like you've had to give up to become a father?
Speaker 1
Man, honestly, nothing. Initially, I always was afraid of having kids because I viewed everything as a cost. And especially when you don't have money, it's hard. But as I always believe in business pain is the precondition for growth. I think Vivi made me see that in personal life, it's the same. It's no different. And so really, I haven't, I don't think I've had to give up anything to have kids or I never saw it that way. I mean, we had kids. I still did the business. And you know, I'll tell you guys this, outside of work, you spend all your time with your partner. Right. Make sure you choose your companions wisely. Your well being depends on it. Right. She made sure that we had a nanny even when we couldn't afford it. So I didn't have to give up on my business goals. That's the reality. Now you want to hack if you can pick one or two things, two, three vacations a year, maybe a fancy car, etc, etc. Or a nanny. And just take stock of your life. How often are we fighting about doing stupid chores? If that's a more than two times a week, then you better believe having a nanny is going to improve your quality of life over that two-week vacation or that fancy car. Go, what good is the fancy car? If every time you and your partner are in it, you guys are
Speaker 2
arguing. Right. Right. Right. What good is what
Speaker 1
good is that vacation where every time you're there, you're, oh, you were on the laptop. Oh, you're not taking care of the kids or here. Like, what good is it? What
Speaker 2
good is it? Yeah. It's good for Instagram, but
Speaker 1
not good pre-mental.
Speaker 2
Yeah. What is a mistake that you've made as a
Speaker 1
father? Oh, you know, a lot of mistakes, man. I think like it's not something you come experienced with. But I think I regret that two or three moments were in a fit of anger. I've yelled at my kids because they don't know. And yelling at them doesn't make it better. In fact, they don't understand it. And that's more an emotional response from your side, but they don't get it. And it makes no difference. I was never yelled at by my dad or I know. And I wish I could emulate his behavior. But sometimes you get impatient and you're in an environment where like, you know, it's COVID times and like you're a Zoom call with lots of people and somebody yanks the internet connection. But I regret that. The other thing I regret, and this is the biggest regret and hopefully, fortunately, my kids are not going to be old enough to remember. But I was on the phone and in my office all the time. I barely spent any time with them. It's the biggest mistake ever did. Like I missed, you know, I missed it with my older one. And then when Emilio was more premature, I promised myself I wouldn't do it. And I was really good. And then one summer when we went into de-billogens, I started neglecting her. And literally in a matter of a month and a half, I saw the switch from daddy to mommy in a big way. And so I think that'll be a regret. But like, I think key thing is to have an open and honest conversation with your partner about what you guys are doing right and what's not. So you can improve, right? It's really funny. We're proactive on everything other than our own wealth, our own health, and our own relationships. Have you noticed that? Like when it comes to work, we want to be the first to show up and the last to leave and be proactive with ideas to impress this boss who's not going to matter in a few years. What about your personal relationship and your personal health and your personal wealth? Like, why aren't we proactive? And I think finding the time to connect with your partner is huge. If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you go with a team. This is everything, right? You got to make the time to have that conversation. And what I like is if you can have a no BS conversation about the good, bad and the ugly, it's really good. I'm just trying to catch up on 10, 11 years of being an absent dad. I mean, nine years of being an absent dad and 11 years of being a mostly absent husband. And so after my third kid, my wife put on a lot of weight. I mean, she's managing the house, has a crazy schedule, and also the kids and everything else. So she put on a lot of weight. And of course, for my mental health and well-being, we moved to this beach environment where everything is taken care of. And, you know, it wasn't her preference, but she did it. And of course, now she loves it because it's like being devised like flying business class for cheap. And when you have to go back and do chores yourself, you realize the value of it. But nonetheless, I was able to transform through that journey because she made it possible. She could have said, no, freaking hell no, I'm leaving. She grew up in New Jersey. Like, I had like, she moved to New Jersey when she was, I think, 11 or 12. So now I'd like 38 to move here is, but she did it. And so, I had this massive transformation and six pack and everything. And then I said, you know what, what can I do for her that will enable me to maximize my time with her and make her happy. So now, earlier this week, we started 150 day, 40th birthday transformation challenge. She turns 40 next April. So I said, I'm going to eat like you. I'm going to train with you, cardio with you, dance with you. We're going to do this, walk the beach together. And so, I'm journaling that on my Instagram every single day. So we're on, we're on, I think it's day five of 150. And I think she'll be happy because I, you know, I don't want to be every time somebody compliments me that I've lost a lot of weight. You look great. I think of myself, who made it possible? Guess I had the opportunity to go and train and do all this stuff. But who made it possible? We're here because of her. And so I am like, you know what, I want to do the same. So, you can get the compliments
Speaker 1
great. I'm sure she really appreciates that. Despite us having somebody who cooks and everything, I'm literally cooking three meals for her and taking pictures of it. I'm getting joy out of it. I don't do things that I'm not passionate about. That's the thing. And so after most and doing traction, then I put all my energy into making the book of bestseller, I have no project. I have nothing for the next five months. Let's do this. Let us do this.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So last question, how can people be helpful to you on your journey if folks are listening to this and they're like, I want to follow along with Lloyd and his life.
Speaker 1
You know, I was posting a lot on LinkedIn in the last six weeks, seven weeks. What I did was to make the book of bestseller. I recorded 80 podcasts in nine week period.
Speaker 2
It's a lot of podcasts.
Speaker 1
And they all released the week of my launch. And then I think I got burnt up. And I said, I need a break. Like I've literally now, I expedited the launch and I said I wouldn't do this, but I literally disappeared on my family. Fortunately, like they were in the States. I came back early to do this. And so I just disconnected from LinkedIn. And I'm spending some time on Instagram, because I think it's more personal. And it gets me to chronicle and do things on the personal side. But I don't know, man, like, I don't really say this. If you learn anything from me, maybe even one take away,
Speaker 1
it forward. I think the only way to have everything you want in life is to help others without expecting anything in return. And this is not something that, you know, I'm just saying, but it's part of our DNA in the sense, like I said, my mom grew up in the slums of Mumbai. And she had nine siblings. And every summer when I'd visit there, there's some stranger or the other in that slum there. And because Mumbai is the New York City of India, that's the reality. You want jobs from the villages, you come in there. And there's been some stranger or the other and I ask my grandparents, like, what do you have this person here? You barely have room for us. And he'd tell me the only way to create abundance in life is to help others without expecting anything in return. Those people might not help you or see you, but you'll get everything. And today, none of his kids are in the slums, not if his grandkids are in the slums. Everyone's well off in some capacity or the other in different parts of the world. And I truly believe we've inherited the karma that my grandparents generated living in that slum. So if I could leave you with anything, I'm living my best life. But I think if you learned one or two things, just spend the time with your family, spend the time helping others. And you'll see the difference compound interest and just being there for your community, your people is huge.